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Successful Bionic Hand 113

Posted by timothy from the fake-toes-just-didn't-make-the-list dept.
nerdygeek writes: "The BBC are reporting the first successful, self-contained Bionic Hand. They've made them small enough for children but they plan to upgrade to adult sizes. It's especially good for young kids since they can adapt and learn to control it very quickly. I thought these kind of things must have been about for ages, but apparently not. I just wonder if they make a Steve Austin style noise when they're used ?" Five kids have the hands so far, about which the article has this to say: "The unit is operated by signals from the brain. The user sends a signal to move a muscle in the forearm, and electrodes detect this and pass the message on to the motors."
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Successful Bionic Hand

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  • >If these children were meant to have hands...

    So, er, it's not possible for people to lose limbs/extremities in accidents? And if they do, it's wrong to replace them?
    What if it's, say, a faulty heart valve or something? Is it wrong to fix it?

    Anonymous Coward 5:13 -- Thou shalt not use any medical technology, for it it naughty in mine eyes and I will smite thee.

  • Sell your Viagra stocks now.

  • What is the difference between bionic, mechanic or robotic? Is there some kind of biological meterial in the bionic hand or does it have something to do with the interaction with nerve cells?

    If anyone has any answers, I would like to know.

  • I thought these were around a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. So now we have a real implementation of it. Wonder how long it will take to reproduce the Rebels' medical robots?

  • Re:they have had these for ages (Score:3)

    by dbarclay10 ( 70443 ) on Thursday November 23, 2000 @01:23PM (#604212)
    I wonder if eventually far in the future, some people will have perfectly good hands or arms replaced for the added speed and strength of a robot equivalent.

    I don't think it'll happen. Here's what I think will, though:

    1. It becomes possible to get robotic body parts which improve greatly on what you are born with.
    2. Athletes and a few crazy rich people try them out. Rich people are left alone, athletes never compete professionaly again, unless it's for people's entertainment.
    3. Robotic parts become cheaper, for whatever reason.
    4. More people get robotic parts, and society in general reacts badly(ie: freak!, you're taking my job, etc., etc.).
    5. Current laws pertaining to self-mutilation, where someone can be forced into psychological treatment, are amended to include the removal of body parts to be replaced by robotic equivalents. Aside from psychological treatment, fines and jail terms are now possible punishments.
    6. No doctors ever replace people's body-parts, because they could lose their license.

    Of course, I'm probably completely wrong. Just one thought, though.

    Dave

    'Round the firewall,
    Out the modem,
    Through the router,
    Down the wire,
  • *crushes big steel flagon with bionic hand* Groovy!
  • I also remember that character...it wasn't 3-2-1 contact thought I'm sure of that...are you SURE it wasn't the electric company? I cant remember any others like that besides sesame street and it sure as hell wasn't THAT....

    Let me know if you figure it out
  • > If the children can do it very easy the adults should have not much more problems.

    I'm afraid I'll have to disagree there - children can learn much faster than adults when it comes to such things, and this is because the nerve pathes in their brains are still forming.

    Give this to a baby, and I'm willing to bet they'll develop its use just as fast as any other appendage's motor control, and as an adult will use it with as much precision as their other hand. But give this to an adult, and I doubt they'll ever get fully used to it like their other hands, and learning the basics would take much more time.

    Small childrens' brains are built to do nothing but learn, and its quite amazing how much they can learn in the time they do. Take the complexities of language, for instance. It doesn't take long at all for a child with no knowledge at all to recognise patterns in speech, mimic those patterns, learn what they mean, and start creating sentences that make sense. A small child will grow up fluent in twelve different languages if all of those are present when the brain is developing at that pace. But an adult has much difficulty learning even one new language, especially if they only grew up with one language spoken in their environment.

    --

  • Slow (Score:1)

    by Mchud ( 223641 )
    Wow, these Bionic hand are a major step forward in Human Cybernetics. The hands can preform a multitude of useful tasks that were never available to a person with that disability before. Will the motors and gears ever be fast enough to compete with biological hands? Will someone with this bionic hand ever be able to type at a fast rate or be able to react in a quick motion (falling down)?

    Anyone say Inspector Gadget is on the way (His hands at least)?

  • hm (Score:2)

    by British ( 51765 )
    Does it make that cool SIx-million dollar man/bionic woman/wonder woman sound effect when the hand is used?
  • Yeah.. well.. um.. that's ok though. :)
  • I'm thinking sensors at the brain level and those robots made by honda [slashdot.org] and sony [slashdot.org].

    This is scary shit.
  • Will these limbs be able to perform well during sex? What about masturbation? How strong is the hands grip? !
  • can I get a droid to attach it for me?
  • If anyone has any answers, I would like to know.

    True, 47, Texaco Star Theater, Wilma.

    Pete

  • If the hand from ED3: AoD becomes a reality, I want the first one. Then maybe i can attach a chainsaw to it. THAT would be fun!
  • All things happen for a reason: the will of God. Man should not challenge that will

    Unless of course God left everything except for the prize rose bushes to that floozy he shacked up with down in Texas.

    Pete

  • hehe can you imagine getting of these, what would they say next day at work/school/jail/etc Oh, bob... nice hand job... heheh so they hand thing is in deed nice.. im still waiting for those glowing eyes in pitch blackt tho.. so keep em coming!

  • Cosmetic or actually useful? (Score:3)

    by nolife ( 233813 ) on Thursday November 23, 2000 @04:17PM (#604226) Homepage Journal
    If you don't get the children very young, and fit them once they are able to crawl, they are not going to get much use later in life.

    I could not agree more..
    My daughter was born with no left hand (slight wrist action). We have tried at least two devices that "looked" like a hand, one had the ability to grasp through the action of bending the elbow. The main purpose of these was cosmetic. Well, neither worked and were very cumbersome. She has made the decision to not try another one until she is older (she's 10 now). Any person will adapt to what they are given. If I suddenly lost a hand I I would be helpless. Try tieing your shoe or buttoning up a shirt with one hand. She was doing these daily since she was three. She has NEVER been in a situation where having only one hand has hindered her in ANY way. We do not even think about it. Her lack of two hands is a 100% complete "non issue". She is getting to the age where she is starting to get concerned about looks though. Any prostectic available now might "look" appealing but would limit her ability to use what she has. Maybe this device and future products will offer a better compromise (and not cost as much as a house).

    With that said... Based on my first hand experience (no pun intended) I would not suggest one of these devices until later in life. Let the child/teenager decide. Learn to use what you have. If you don't you will be forced to the likes of MS Windows and constantly refitting and upgrading this thing for the rest of your life because you never developed the skills to go without it. They do not last long, constantly need refitting and are very cumbersome (at least the two we tried years ago). I did not have any experience with this before it happened to our family. If these types of devices were readily availible when she was younger I would not have hesitated to get one, thinking it would be a greatest help to her. I am glad we did not.

    Save your money and send the kid to karate classes instead, then they can beat the hell out of the other kids that make fun of them because they are different.

    Sorry, spel cheker broke.
  • A while back I was reading a book for a research progect, it didn't help for that, but it did talk about regenerating limbs. (I THINK it was called "the body electric", or something like that)

    It talked about using anodes and cathodes inside of animals to regenerate limbs, stop infections, and do some really neat stuff. The researchers found that an anode would if the nerves were at the edge (just below, or on the surface) and were exposed to electrons (from the anode) they would grow back the limb. Things like sealing it with skin prevented the regeneration (covering it over). They showed this in mice (or rats) and in humans. (A guy had a leg fracture that would not heal so he asked them to try to use the research to regenerate it, and they did, as opposed to the 1975- treatment if it wouln't heal in a year. it worked) They found that cathodes would kill bacteria and have a much weaker, but very similar effect upon regeneration. The reason was the electrical charges would cause the cells to de-specialize (revert to things similar to stem cells, and even to stem cells). This, if the cancer was in like a leg (of a mouse), and if the limb was amputated with a cut through the cancer, it would stop the cancer, because they too would de-specialize. It leads me to the posibility that (though I will not try it) limbs could be regenerated, if the person lost them, like salamanders and some other organisms do.

    The research was pre-1975 (the book came out then) but I have not found anything has come from it. If you read the entire post, sorry for the length, and likely numerous grammer/spelling errors

  • Try this as a little do it at home experiment. Go construct some headware that, using mirrors, inverts your image of the world. Walk around with them on for a couple weeks- eventually you'll wake up one day and the world will be right side up again. Unfortunately there's a similar learning curve for learning to see the world correctly with the glasses off...
    Here's a link [abc.net.au] to an old documentary which contains some more detailed information.
  • The technology is called myoelectrics and has been around since approx 1947. The article says partial hand, this gives a lot more control options than a transradial amputation. The pictur actually depicted using Otto-Bock batteries(you can see it just under the silicon glove used to give a 'lifelike' appearance to the hand. The news always seems to bring out the same stories on 'bionic' limbs, and it is the same shit over and over again.... For the electronic engineers, the system is normally: signal is taken from the muscle longitudinally filtered rectified amplified then logic circuitry is used to gain a control mechanism. this depends on available sites, muscle control, functions required..... It is the same story over and over again....
  • While the brain loses alot of plasticity, it is always able to adapt to changing neuromotor situations because it has to. As we age, things stop working, or change their properties, so the brain has to adjust. Also, experiments have been done in VR which have demonstrated a remarkable ability even for adults to adapt to extra limbs within hours. Don't sell the brain short. :)
  • For a bionic hand? Valvoline might be better :)
  • The 3rd arm sounds nice, but there would be some problems:

    1. Where to put it. Where would you attach it? You are going to look kinda silly with a 3rd arm sticking out of your forehead or your pants.
    2. Clothes. They are going to have to be custom ordered. Forget about anything that is designer or, mostlikely, name brand.
  • However, its also possible for a windows box to have a 1 month uptime...

    You lie, there's no way a windows box can be doing anything and stay up for a month.
  • www.sabolich.com [sabolich.com] is working on HOT/COLD and sense of touch.
  • Was that the show with the freaky character that was dressed all in black, and had toilet paper rolls in place of eyes and mouth? I swear to god such a show existed, but no-one believes me. If anyone knows what that show was, please, please, PLEASE tell me.
  • you forgot 'merkin' fake hair that looks real and covers used to cover the area above the vagina. Please remove before eating.

  • So, er, it's not possible for people to lose limbs/extremities in accidents? And if they do, it's wrong to replace them? What if it's, say, a faulty heart valve or something? Is it wrong to fix it?

    All things happen for a reason: the will of God. Man should not challenge that will.

  • ...How long until bionic machine-gun arms come out?

    And beyond that, how long until cyber-battle-roids are created?

    Ok, maybe that's a little silly. But you know, there is no reason that I can think of (although I Am Not A Biotechnician) that you would have to make the bionic limb necessarily arm shaped... What would happen if you gave it 10 fingers, for example? Or made it double jointed? Or attactched laser beams or missile launchers, or some other b-grade sci-fi flick attchment? (Obviously some method of controling it would be needed, but that could probably be delt with, especially if you started using the destructo-hand (TM) young enough) While we're obviously not QUITE to the technical level to create fully modular limbs, it's still something to think about...
  • "I just wonder if they make a Steve Austin style noise when they're used ?"

    I hear you move the bionic hand to give the finger, it says:

    "AND THAT"S THE BOTTOM LINE, CAUSE STONE COLD SAYS SO!!!"
  • I've never understood why these things have to be pink. I mean, it's not as if it's going fool anybody. I'd rather have one in black, or medical blue, or just bare.

    Better to get "You have a bionic hand? Cool!" than "Your hand .. erm .. it's very realistic. No really, I couldn't tell."

  • I think the point was rather that a) they are fully integrated -- no wires to battery packs b) yes, small, though non-integrated models for children have been round for a while, I think c) Talks to Nerves, not muscles, like previous ones did. Now, I don't know if this is the first device to talk to nerves directly, or even if the BBC was right about that, though it's usually fairly good, at least next to CNN, ABC MSN etc., BUT I do know that the older/current(?) models simply detected muscle contraction -- ie. physical translation of skin -- or relied on some other form of control, and so direct communication with nerves would be an improvement.

  • This is one step closer to creating bionic spines to help paralyzed people walk again. This would certainly be interesting, and help a lot of people out, but it goes beyond that. In theory, we could create viable exo-skeletons, which would simply use your regular brain functions to perform tasks with greater force.

    I assume you could also train someone to have multiple arms with this technlogy, which would prove even more interesting.

  • I love that part.
  • I remember that, I seem to remember seeing it on "The Muppet Show" (introduced as a Mime troupe) there were a bunch of these guys, but the one that sticks out in my mind was the TP Guy. Weird, no?

    I wonder whatever happend to 'Paco'...

    http://us.imdb.com/Title?0190169 [imdb.com]

    Capt. Ron

  • Not sure if this is exactly what you mean but here's [csun.edu] a link to some writing about v.r environments where they're talking about stimulation of various senses within v.r. as it applies to remote control of robots etc. Presumably this would be just as valid in prosthetic limbs



    --feeander--
  • Hm...maybe it was the electric company. Like I said...I'll have to meditate on it.
  • Hey they have made a bionic eye. Aussie invention. Sorry can't say I have a whole bunch of details, but I do remember that they pulled one of the patient's teeth (molar I think). They then attached the optical nerve to a chip imbedded in the tooth. I assume that they also attached the eye muscles to the tooth.

    Didn't look pretty (and the journalist didn't ask if you had to brush your new eyes) but apparently the person could make out 'basic shapes' of objects. Enough to get around the room with little trouble.

    Side topic:

    Apparently there are some groups of blind people that are annoyed by this technology and the pressure they feel to be 'normal'.

    Anywhoo, wouldn't go pulling teeth just yet decipher_saint apparently the tech is still 'in development'.

    Following is an article about the chip side of the tech. As I mentioned above the report I saw suggested that they were getting around the rejection problems by imbedding the chip in the enamel of a tooth.

    http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/DailyNe ws/cuttingedge981105.html

    Omni

  • Your probably right
    Still 0 karma for me
  • Yeah, I remember seeing the same show. I think one of the other neat thinks is that if they fire both the hot and the cold units attached to the skin, they generate pain. Pain is very important is getting people to stop doing things that are bad for them.

    The other neat thing they mentioned was that, much like phantom pain, the user experienced phantom sensation, i.e. they "felt" the heat or cold at the fingertip.

  • Yo, Beotch! According to the Linguistic Association of America (dat be dah profeshunals, they dope), Ebonics, or Black English, is a dialect of English. It is widespread, and it does have some universal rules. If you'd like some classes in Black English, or fact checking, drop me a line.
  • See [tagish.co.uk]: it doesn't make you look any happer.
  • But I'm a little dismayed at the theology and anatomy. Would you be using your bionic hand to fuck the eye socket of God (v small penis by the way, or v big depending on your stance on omnipresence).

    And you could come doing this (God is always played by James Mason, how could you.....)

  • missed the point - its for people w/ partial hands (Score:4)

    by lkchild ( 166476 ) on Thursday November 23, 2000 @04:42PM (#604254)
    I think you guys have missed the point

    The big thing with this is that the motor is miniaturised to fit inside the thumb prostheses. That means its a) small enough for children, and b) the big thing is that because the mechanics are small enough to be moved into the thumb theres no mechanism between the fingers and wrist, which opens it up to people who have partial or deformed hands, who previously had to have them amputated to fit a full hand prosthetic on.

    TTFN
    Lauren

    --
    Lauren Child, lauren@laurenchild.net [mailto]

  • I can't find the figures right now; please take my word that myo-prosthesis have no strength problem - they're quite capable of crushing a human hand in a handshake.

    It is not one strength fits all. The agenda is very much one of control - use of finger sensors to regulate the force exerted; and the application of microprocessor based adaptive control of the functionality of the hand, through a command-based interface (rather than switch control, or proportional control). And lots of other great stuff, from neural network based pattern recognition of EMG signals, through to diagnostic links allowing users to change hand parameters via their PC.

  • Dunno about direct brain control. This hand is using EMG sensors measuring changes in resistance on the surface of the skin of the forearm, as muscles flex. There is work in Sweden on ossio-integration of prostheses ... attaching the prosthetic straight on to the bone; and direct electrical interfaces with nerve ends. Ossio-integration is nearer than useful nerve interfacing...
  • have some competition. Anybody know of any other bionic hand movies?

  • Obligatory Evil Dead reference (Score:3)

    by Verteiron ( 224042 ) on Thursday November 23, 2000 @12:22PM (#604258) Homepage
    "Groovy" -- Ash
  • The film on "Tomorrow's World" showed a boy using a game console with both his natural hand and the prostheses
  • These things are controlled by nerve impulses? That is pretty amazing! It must be difficult to get used to these, but for a person who has never had a hand it would be a lot easier to adapt too. If the children can do it very easy the adults should have not much more problems. Does this mean that bionic arms and legs are up soon? They can do intricate tasks and since they run off a motor the MUST have a power source, and what about typing and shit can they do that?
  • For now they can keep BOTH hands on the keyboard!
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • And I think this is the biggest crock of shit opinion I have seen on slashdot in months.

    The hand is one of *the* central parts of the body. So intimately connected to the brain is the hand, that it is more like an extension of a person's will. Upper limb loss is traumatic beyond belief. (Try keeping your dominant hand in your pocket and not using it for the next couple of days - you'll maybe start to understand.)

    Mechanical prostheses are *very*limited, and often extremely uncomfortable to use. Myo-electric prostheses are - with few exceptions - primitive beyond belief.

    Users of hands like ProDigits, the Utah hand, the Leverhume -Oxford hand, would (metaphorically) gladly take you outside and beat you to a pulp for uttering such a condiscending, ill-considered view.

    You "just don't think its worth it" because you just don't know what you are talking about, and have not troubled yourself to apply the bare minimum of thought before mouthing off.

  • Huh? No vanity replacement of body parts?

    What are breast implants and penile implants, then? Lots of people have them (around here, at least- Venice Beach, California).
  • I saw this on the news last night. Cool technology for sure, but with a ghastly flesh-coloured plastic covering... ewww... If it were me I think just about anything would look better than a flesh-coloured rubber washing up glove. Five more fashionable ideas off top of my head (and I'm pretty much a lost cause fasion-wise): 1) no covering - gears and wires and motors visible. Might have problem with grit. 2) clear plastic - appeals to the youngster that has the clear plastic gameboy. 3) stainless steel - for the Terminator look 4) black leather glove - just cool 5) flesh-coloured plastic but custom-painted to match rest of arm and other hand. I noticed in the news story this little girl with one of the hands, grabbing on to her mother's finger. The girl was grinning with delight while her mother was going "oww! Let go now. oww! That actually hurts. oww! Let go !"
  • Give this to a baby, and I'm willing to bet they'll develop its use just as fast as any other appendage's motor control, and as an adult will use it with as much precision as their other hand. But give this to an adult, and I doubt they'll ever get fully used to it like their other hands, and learning the basics would take much more time.
    although I agree with you that you are probably right about children being able to use the hand far easier I think there is a valid argument for sugesting the opposite. consider the fact that in experiments adults tend to suffer from phantom appendages for a much greater period of time. this is due to the same principle that you argued on - that neurons in a childs brain are forming, and reforming at a much higher rate. if particular neurons in a childs brain are not used (ie the motor neurons in question) then the child may lose use of these neurons for life (hence lazy eyes). if you give the prosthetic appendage to an adult the proper motor neurons may still be in place leaving the adult the task of refineing his control. the refinement process will obviously be much easier to a child but the adult does appear to have a head start (or a hand up). ultimately the child will probably prove to have a far simpler time I am simply pointing out that the arguement is not as simple as language and can therefore not be treated as a perfect parallel.
  • This could literally give someone's life back to them. Think of it, if someone fell before a decapitating injury and lost the use of their hands they wouldn't be hindered by the loss! Also by figuring out how the brain handles sensory / motor signals in the hands could lead to other advances such as better bionic legs / arms and maybe even bionic eyes (I'm legally blind BTW...).

    Kudos to science! Lets give these guys a hand ;-)

    Capt. Ron

  • Would it be possible to connect a third arm and train the brain to use that? I can think of many fields that would find this useful. Also the article does not say how it is powered, if you have to have an extention cord draging behind you, its not quite practicle.

  • I wonder how much time will pass before someone somewhere starts using kids to grow them into crafty robocop-ish mechwarriors.

    Think about it... If you can make a steel arm, how far behind is an ultimate soldier?

  • maybe they have been improved, but they have been around for a long time.

    The main benefit from this new type of prosthetic is that all of the opposing thumb movement mechanism is contained within the thumb itself. The main advantage of this is that people who have a partial hand can use this prosthetic because there is room to fit their existing hand inside it. Ironically, people in this position were actually at a greater disadvantage than those with no hand at all.


    Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
  • before we see professional athletes competing with bionic limbs, etc. The old days of playing Nintendo sports games with robots may not be far away, witness the AIBO soccer stuff, then this.. steadily getting closer.

    As long as they don't replace the cheerleaders. :)
  • They also fail in that they are not built for normal use. I know, I've used one since about 1985. They break really easily. This new arm doesn't seem much different from the Otto Bock manufactured myoelectric arm I used to use (gold electrodes for picking up the right/left electrical signals from skin surface on arm). I'm not sure how 'new' this technology actually is, or in practice, the fact that they are rolling them out to kids. When the NHS switched to Steepers instead of Otto Bock for supply, the build quality seemed to suffer as well, I gave up using my myo a couple of years ago, (after 10 years using a 'bionic' arm on and off) as it was pretty impractical, battery life, random signals and motor ticks, uncomfortable socket fit, but I'm going to try again up at PMR, see what these 'new' ones are like.
  • It must be waterproof too.
  • sorry, i meant to put a big bahahahahaha at the end of that last one ;) .. gotta quit being so trigger happy on the "submit" ..

    - j
  • now they just gotta finish building the rest of the body, and once we've got a bionic man and a bionic woman, there'll be a whole new meaning to cybersex...
    --------------
  • maybe they have been improved, but they have been around for a long time.

    When I was in college, some 30 years ago, there was a guy who was trying to do precisely this. At the time, it was damn near all he could do to just define the problems he faced, and he didn't get very far. He was a pretty bright man, too.

    People have been working on this for a long time; it's gradually gotten better, as the technologies have been developed and imported from other fields. It's actually getting useable now -- and that's a significant advance.

    There's a world of difference between conceiving of a solution to a problem, and implementing it -- even if you manage to do both in the same detail.

    ---

  • The article said it was powered by batteries that was one of the difficulties in getting small enough batteries
  • "The unit is operated by nerve signals to the brain. The user sends a signal to move a muscle in the forearm, and electrodes detect this and pass the message on to the motors."
    I wonder how well this works as previous robotic arms had problems with this as the arm did not make all the moves a real arm would ex raising a glass to drink out of.
    Either way, this will help a lot of people...
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • No, that definitly wasn't the show, but I do remember such a beast! Don't remember what it was, however. Not 'Electric Company,' I don't think. I do remember it, he would sit there and spin those damn rolls of TP. Maybe it was 321. I'll have to meditate on it.
  • Thanks for the pointer Mr. Dictionary...

    To paraphrase Randal Graves from "Clerks"
    Doesen't it feel good, knowing that you're right for a change? There's nothing more exhilarating than pointing out the shortcomings of others is there?

    Capt. Ron

  • I'd prefer an extra PAIR of arms... a 3rd hand would be obnoxious... it'd unbalance your body, or be mounted in a very weak location...
    The problem is, the nervous system doesn't have the nerves to control a second set of hands... So if you gakked a guy, stole his brain stem, shoulders and arms, and grafted them into your body, finding a way to connect his brain stem to your brain, it may be possible. However, its also possible for a windows box to have a 1 month uptime...
  • Seen this on the BBC here in Ireland about 2 nights ago. The device is far from the holy
    grail of bionic limbs. It has only one small motor with a wormwheel to open and close the "thumb" slowly. No other joints or digits or senses. Its being tested on children with partial hands and from what i seen they seem to adapt to it very quickly.

    Hopefully this nerve hookup tech evolves quickly
    to include feedback ( a really small bit of pain would be easy to produce from a pressure sensor for a _really_ crude hack as an indicator i suppose).

    I seen one kid in a clip accidently crush his parents hands slightly.
    Full feedback is still a bit far away
  • I can think of many fields that would find this useful.
    Ski Boxing for a start. Now about that extra head...
  • And I personally think all this robitic hand stuff is pointless. It is disgusting being connected to a piece of machinery. Sure, it might be useful once and a while -- but i just don't think its worth it.
  • I'm going to wait until they get the smartgun link as part of the package instead of optional.
  • i think toshiba also makes some of them.
  • While it's nice that the English will lay claim to this invention, I've seen this device around for many years. The Sabolich's showed a similar device on Oprah about 2 years back, plus I saw a demo of something similar in highschool (www.sabolich.com [sabolich.com]). Now where they seem to be laying claim to fame is not in the development of the mechanism or reading an impulse from the human operator but in making it "self contained". Seems like a little bit of a fishy statement, what exactly is "self contained"? The model that I saw several years ago was 'self contained' in my opinion, it had a small battery that fit into the unit and no external devices. Unfortunately the unit could only run for about 30 minutes on a charge. So what exactly have they 'invented' that hasn't been around for the past several years? Anyone know?

  • I wonder if these prosthetics also have... (Score:4)

    by dmatos ( 232892 ) on Thursday November 23, 2000 @12:33PM (#604289)
    the integrated senses of hot/cold that I saw somewhere a while ago. I think it was on TV. Basically, there was a thermocouple in the fingertips that would trigger a heating/cooling unit at the top of the prosthetic, where existing nerves would pick it up. Response time was remarkably fast, enough so that someone touching the surface of, say, a stove would be able to respond quickly enough to avoid serious damage to the prosthetic. If anyone has a link, I'd appreciate it.

  • That is pretty neat. But now that the hand is not limited by the body, as it is controlled by motors, what about the strenth of it. Is it one strentgh fits all, or does the user have the power to apply different amount of strengths? And, how strong could it be?

  • ...one could actually make bionic legs for people who can't walk anymore due to nerve damage.

    Now unfortunately we're restricted to dealing with individual _nerves_... People who have had spinal cord damage are in a worse situation, similar (but simpler, of course) to the ones who have lost vision due to a damaged optic nerve.

    Some day we may know how to make neurons reproduce at an acceptable rate, but will we ever be able to attain precision high enough to, say, restore vision to acceptable standards?

    The article doesn't mention nerve wear on their connections to subcutaneous electrodes, but that should be a point to consider as well.

    Flavio
  • Yeah, I should have been more specific. It's already legal that people get mechanical replacements for defective organs and such - I can imagine, though, that doctors wouldn't be allowed to do what you call "vanity" replacements.

    All in all, I think it's a good position - if I want to augment something, I want it to be done through genetics so it's permanent, and inherited(Yeah, I realize I wouldn't benefit, just my kids - but you get the idea).

    Dave
    'Round the firewall,
    Out the modem,
    Through the router,
    Down the wire,
  • If they can do this, they should be able to soon have people able to control things that aren't normally part of the human body with their brains. It seems that the idea of dragoons in Starcraft (robots controlled by crippled warriors as if it was their body) is nearly possible.
  • Yeah, one I posted about.. Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness...

  • They are controlled by nerve impulses (Score:3)

    by dmatos ( 232892 ) on Thursday November 23, 2000 @12:35PM (#604295)
    in the exact same way that your fingers are.

    The muscles that move your fingers are all in your forearm. Basically, the prosthetic has senses the muscle twitches in the forearm and uses that to trigger the motors which open/close the hand.

  • Well, our nervous system seems to help us respond to dangers, such as placing your hand in a dangerously hot area, the body responds and the hand moves. I wonder if getting the hand to have some form of feedback would be the next step.

  • Re:This is so cool (Score:4)

    by dmatos ( 232892 ) on Thursday November 23, 2000 @12:38PM (#604297)
    Ouch. I'd certainly hate to suffer a decapitating [dictionary.com] injury. However, I would be very impressed if someone wasn't hindered by the loss. Actually, come to think of it, a few of the people I know probably wouldn't be hindered by the loss.
  • robotic implant hand

    ________

  • It would be great to have an extension cord dangling out of your back - Just think Neon Genesis Evangelion! :)
  • They have had bionic arms with motor controled fingers on them for ages, and they do have ones with pressure sensitivity and thermocouples built in. Thats not the big deal here. The point is that these hand units are self contained, i.e theres no HIGE battery pack held in a big false arm thing that weighs a tonne; its all in the hand, so to speak ;-)
  • I am hoping that this entire post was in jest, because it shows a direct non-understanding of prosthetic theory or the issues that an amputee faces with cosmesis and acceptance by 'normal' people. BTW, that "flesh-coloured rubber washing up glove" normally costs anywhere from $50-$300 depending on the material and the amount of work put into making it lifelike.
  • Could they replace the robotic part of the arm by say.. a mouse interface ?

    If they can move their finger with enough accuracy, they could surely move a computer cursor...

    Despite not having a real hand, being able to control a computer or another device by thought could prove to be very useful and practical.

  • Prodigit vs other my-electric hand prostheses (Score:5)

    by tagishsimon ( 175038 ) on Thursday November 23, 2000 @03:34PM (#604307) Homepage
    The major differece between ProDigit and previous hand prosthetics is that the motors and gearbox are housed in the finder, not in the palm area of the hand. I *think* the other major difference is that ProDigit has a curling finger action, whilst conventional myo-electric prostheses tend to have a prehensile grip in which the fingers do not curl. The hand has a more anthropomorphic design, in that the thumb abducts across the palm - conventional myos tend to have a straight opposing thumb.

    There is more good stuff about - not sure how much is in ProDigit - such as better acquisition of EMG signals; use of sensors within the hand to augment the control function (e.g. incipient slip sensors which can tighten the grip without user intervention); adaptive control for different grip postures - precision, power and prehension...

    Power is still a major issue; equally we all know battery technology has come on in bounds in the last ten years, and shaped batteries offer the prospect of further diminshing the package size.

    One poster talked nonsense about "the indignity of being strapped to a machine". Roughly 102,000 persons in the US (251 M inhabitants = 1 in 2460) have absence or loss of an upper extremity. Myo-prosthesis are suitable for about 41,000 of them. In the western world, the market is about 132,000. Most users have had years of being supplied with crap prosthetics. ProDigits and its ilk *majorly* improve the functional capabilites of their users, & the work of David Gow and the PMR team is to be welcomed.

  • Re:3rd hand? (Score:3)

    by plunge ( 27239 ) on Thursday November 23, 2000 @04:05PM (#604311)
    Especialy if done as an adult, this would be quite difficult. Once you hit a certain age, your brain gets a lot more set in its ways, and maybe most importantly- it already has a complete coherent "body image"- making additions to it is a HUGE change. While it certainly could reallocate some neurons to control this third arm (often done when brain damage victims relearn tasks they lost when the part of the brain that contorlled them was damaged), they would be really sloppy and awkward even after tons and tons of practice. A child could certainly learn a third arm, though of course it would have difficultly because it would hav no human models to imitate in the use of it (but since it'd be pretty similar to other arms, that wouldn't be a major problem) I did remember a story in the New Yorker about a totally paralyzed guy who could move a mouse on the computer screen just by thinking about it. They simply put a switch in his brain in the part that used to control his wrist functions, read the simple and generalized movement impulses, and translated it into x and y movement for the program it was hooked up to. REALLY neat. Think of how this could change human society if everyone grew up with such embedded switches that they learned to use, and that could be put to a myriad of tasks outside of our own body motion!
  • I think you're thinking of the blind man who got a chip implanted in his retina that allowed him to at least see rough shape outlines as an array of points. Pretty cool, that.

    "If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.

  • they have had these for ages (Score:4)

    by Bad_CRC ( 137146 ) on Thursday November 23, 2000 @12:38PM (#604315)
    maybe they have been improved, but they have been around for a long time.

    I remember very clearly back in elementary school when a one-armed man came to demonstrate for the class a robotic arm which responded to electrical signals to work the fingers, and also demonstrated a "hook" type arm operated by straps.

    He told us we'd rather have the robotic arm if we needed one, because it would make us look like everyone else, and I remember thinking that I'd want it because it was cool, and seemed to be much more convenient.

    I'm sure the effectiveness and appearance has come a long way since then, but for certain, the idea isn't new. Someday, we'll have true cyborg quality completely indistinguishable from the real thing.

    I wonder if eventually far in the future, some people will have perfectly good hands or arms replaced for the added speed and strength of a robot equivalent.

    ________

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