Hasta La Gadget!

Austin Whitney hasn’t been able to walk since a 2007 car crash left him paralyzed, but on Saturday the 22-year-old triumphantly strode across the stage to accept his degree from UC Berkeley. He had a little help, in the form of a specially crafted robotic exoskeleton developed by Berkeley engineering professor Homayoon Kazerooni. Kazerooni and his team designed the exoskeleton with lightness and affordability in mind, resisting the urge to load it up with expensive hardware and tethering the mechanized walker to a backpack that houses a computer and a rechargeable, eight-hour battery. As a result, the Austin walker won’t enable the kind of acrobatic leaps that would make Lt. Rasczak proud, but its reduced mobility comes at a reduced cost of just $15,000. That’s certainly not an impulse buy, though it’s a welcomed alternative to other exoskeletons that retail for $100,000 or more. Walk past the break for a video of Whitney’s momentous steps, along with a clip of Kazerooni describing his creation.

Continue reading Paralyzed student uses robotic exoskeleton to walk at college graduation (video)

Paralyzed student uses robotic exoskeleton to walk at college graduation (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 May 2011 08:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We could feed you a line about the final frontier or exploring strange new worlds, but we’ll just give it to you straight: the X-Prize Foundation has teamed up with Qualcomm to design the Tricorder X-Prize, a $10 million competition designed to boldly go where no contest has gone before. Sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves. The most recent addition to the ambitious X-Prize stable is aimed at producing a mobile medical device, similar to those used on Star Trek, that can “diagnose patients better than or equal to a panel of board certified physicians.” Said device would allow regular folks to “quickly and effectively assess health conditions, determine if they need professional help,” and then decide on a plan of action. The Tricorder X-Prize competition is still in the planning stages and should be ready to launch sometime in 2012. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading X-Prize reveals plans for tricorder competition, suspiciously lacking Nimoy endorsement

X-Prize reveals plans for tricorder competition, suspiciously lacking Nimoy endorsement originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 May 2011 09:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It may not look like it, but that sleek black thing pictured above is actually a microscope. Designed by engineers at Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering IOF, this little guy boasts a 5.3mm optical length, rendering it slim enough to fit in the palm of your hand, yet powerful enough to deliver images at a scanner-like resolution of five micrometers, over a wide surface area. Fraunhofer’s researchers achieved this balance by essentially tossing out the manual on traditional microscope design. Whereas most devices slowly scan areas and construct images on a piecemeal basis, this handheld uses several small imaging channels and a collection of tiny lenses to record equal sized fragments of a given surface. Unlike conventional scanner microscopes, all of these 300 x 300 square micrometer imaging channels are captured at the same time. With a single swipe, then, users can record 36 x 24 square mm shots of matchbox-sized objects, without even worrying about blurring the images with their shaky hands. The prototype is still two years away from going into production, but once it does, engineers say it could help doctors scan patients for skin cancer more easily, while also allowing bureaucrats to quickly confirm the authenticity of official documents. We can only imagine what it could do for Pac-Man. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading Ultra-thin handheld microscope could sniff out skin cancer, forged documents

Ultra-thin handheld microscope could sniff out skin cancer, forged documents originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 May 2011 09:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The thought of an endoscope entering any orifice is an unpleasant one, even if it’s so your doctor can diagnose what ails you. Good thing Medigus made the world’s smallest video camera so those medical probes are a little less painful. It’s .99mm in diameter — making it a smidge smaller than previous peewee endoscopes — and packs a .66mm x .66mm CMOS sensor to deliver video of your insides at 45,000 pixels worth of resolution. Best of all, the devices are disposable, so clean-up’s a breeze. A reusable version is also available, but given where these things go, we’re just fine with them being one use only. PR’s after the break.

Continue reading World’s tiniest video camera helps doctors see inside of you

World’s tiniest video camera helps doctors see inside of you originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 May 2011 20:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Searching for a relaxing time over the upcoming Golden Week holidays? If you’re a man who likes to take care of his hair then look no further than Lion’s temporary Pro Tec Cafe in Roppongi Hills.

Following a similar pop-up in Ginza last summer, the Pro Tec Cafe is devoted to showcasing the Pro Tec “washing brush”. Just add shampoo and use the brush to tend to your hair and improve your scalp and follicles. It apparently helps wash and clean right down into the roots, as well as just feeling like a nice massage in the bath. It even promises to combat thinning hair, an issue I have a personal interest in!

Men’s personal care and hair products are big business in Japan and spending by male consumers rose by 3.6% in 2009, accompanied by a proliferation of new deodorant products and brands like Shiseido showing men how to make their hair look funky.

At the Pro Tec Cafe you can try out the brush and other products in the series (shampoos, sprays etc), as well as get advice from a hair stylist expert. If you turn up with your wife or loved one you can even enjoy the Pro Tec experience in true romantic style, with your partner applying the brush to your locks and giving you a loving head massage.

Japan has quite a tradition of this kind of “healthcare” service — there are already plenty of mimikaki ear-cleaning parlors out there for salarymen who want their canal needs tended to with a sort of maternal counseling dimension added on. Whatever cultural implications might be drawn from this slightly chauvinistic set-up, it certainly makes for an interesting tryvertising experiment, with consumers retaining more investment in the product for it being a mutual “couple” experience enjoyed together.

Aimed at men in their late twenties and thirties, the Pro Tec Cafe will be open for hair-washing sessions from April 29 to May 5 only.