Get Ripped With Apple and Nike

Stephen Brandau | March 4, 2008

Photo from Rodrigo Quiñones' Flickr Stream

Apple and Nike had previously co-released running shoes which allow you to track your running statistics. A new
announcement from Nike and Apple let's us know they're not stopping with shoes. They're now working on making iPods compatible with gym equipment. I can only speculate on the features such a system would have: Stair counting? Weighing mechanisms? Maybe your iPod will call you a wuss until you complete those last few reps. I suppose there's a reason I'm not on the design team for these things.

Updates on the Luke Arm and XO Laptop

Stephen Brandau | February 26, 2008

Lots of Progress has been made with Dean Kamen's prosthetic arm I previously talked about. This footage of "the Luke Arm" is especially impressive.

Inhabitat, an environmental issues site, has a great video of Mary Lou Jepson, one of the XO developers, explaining how revolutionarily green the laptop is.

Anyone who edits html will love this tool, which allows you to enter in your code and refresh a second frame which shows you the output.

700mhz vs Satellite

Stephen Brandau | February 25, 2008

Confused what the big deal about this whole 700mhz auction is? Engadget provides a good explanation as to where the band comes from (soon to be decommissioned TV signals) and what it could be used for. (Cell phones, wireless internet, etc.) While I was originally rooting for Google or another company with 'open' aspirations for the project, it looks like there may be other, more cost effective alternatives like launching a super-fast internet satellite. It only cost Japan $480million; at that rate Google could launch ~10 of these satellites for the price the 700mhz frequency is expected to fetch.

Shapeshifting Robots

Stephen Brandau | February 1, 2008

A new research project at Carnegie Mellon University aims to create shapeshifting robots that will be able to morph into all sorts of shapes. Images of the cop from Terminator 2 come to mind, but those are unrealistic, right? The initial research deals with swarms of very visible robots, looking more like a group of battery operated rolling toys bumping into each other, but "Rob Reid at the US Air Force Research Lab is collaborating with the Carnegie Mellon team to develop even smaller prototype robots." It's pretty clear we can expect to see some shape-shifting time-traveling robot police in the future.

While we're on the topic of movie technologies becoming a reality, the prosthetic arm I reported about earlier from Dean Kamen is entering FDA testing and has officially been dubbed the "Luke Arm" as it resembles Luke Skywalker's prosthetic limb from Star wars.

War, Huh, What Is It Good For?: Prosthetics!

Stephen Brandau | January 25, 2008

Sometimes war brings technological improvements we wouldn't otherwise see. Often these technologies or methodologies end up becoming mainstays in society, doing much more than their war-time purposes. Occupational Therapy, for example, didn't exist until shortly after World War 1, when the large amount of disabled war veterans called for the creation of a new profession to teach them how to live with their disabilities. Occupational Therapy has since broadened its horizons significantly, procuring treatments for ailments from lymphoedema to post-stroke motor coordination loss.

Similarly, the industry of prosthetics always sees its largest technological improvements during times of war. Today CNN reports that using a new application of bluetooth technology, a soldier missing both his legs can now walk. This is only the newest development in what has become one of the fastest growing fields, which had all but become stagnant before so many soldiers started coming home injured. Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway and holder of over 150 patents, has spent much of the past year developing what promises to be the most impressive prosthetic arm ever assembled. Speaking at TED, whose site, imho, is well worth surfing, Dean explains some of the inspiration and details surrounding the prosthetic arm's development. About 2 minutes into the video we get a look at the arm as it was more than 6 months ago, and it's really quite amazing.

These technologies have endless ancillary applications from surgical tools to industrial robotics. Imagine a precise, miniature surgical arm with more range of motion than the human arm under the control of the world's best doctors using a mounted camera. It's unfortunate that technologies with so many egalitarian applications only get attention when we need to fix what we've wronged.

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