TechCrunch reporter Brian Heater spotlights how MIT researchers have developed a new approach to robotic gripping that incorporates reflexes to help grasp and sort objects. “The new system is built around an arm with two multi-joint fingers,” writes Heater. “There’s a camera on the base and sensors on the tips that record feedback. The system uses that data to adjust accordingly.”
Augmental, a startup co-founded by MIT graduates, has developed a Bluetooth mouthpiece that makes it easier for individuals with mobility issues to use computers, reports WHDH. “People with severe hand impairment are isolated in this world and it’s just not fair,” says co-founder Tomás Vega SM ‘19. “So, our interface seeks to help those people and enable them to access and to share with the world.”
Xander, an MIT spinoff founded by Alex Westner SM ’98, has developed glasses that generate real-time captions of conversations for the wearer, reports Aaron Pressman for The Boston Globe. “The glasses have their own processor and front-facing microphones and are designed to convert conversational speech into text captions,” writes Pressman.
Alex Westner SM ’98 founded Xander, a company that uses augmented reality in personalized glasses to provide real-time closed captions for people with hearing loss, reports Dalvin Brown for The Wall Street Journal. “The glasses have an embedded display on the right side, where text appears almost as quickly as it’s picked up by a built-in microphone,” writes Brown. “There’s no wireless connection – all processing happens within the glasses.”
MIT researchers have developed a new magnet-based system to monitor muscle movements that could help make prosthetic limbs easier to control, reports Brianna Silva for WHDH.
Open Style Lab, a nonprofit initially started as a summer project at MIT in 2014 that is aimed at making fashion more accessible for people who are disabled, designed clothes for “Double Take,” a fashion event dedicated to raising awareness about the lives and needs of people with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), reports Matthew Herper for STAT.
CSAIL researchers have developed a robotic arm equipped with a sensorized soft brush that can untangle hair, reports Douglas Belkin for The Wall Street Journal. “The laboratory brush is outfitted with sensors that detect tension," writes Belkin. “That tension reads as pain and is used to determine whether to use long strokes or shorter ones.”
PBS Nova premiered “Augmented,” a documentary film that features Prof. Hugh Herr and his research team’s work in developing brain controlled robotic limbs and reimagining amputation procedures. “Herr is teaming up with an injured climber and a surgeon at a leading Boston hospital to test a new approach to surgical amputation that allows prosthetic limbs to move and feel like the real thing,” writes PBS Nova.
Wall Street Journal reporter John Anderson spotlights “Augmented” a new PBS documentary featuring Prof. Hugh Herr and his work in robotic limbs and surgery.
A new documentary titled “Augmented” spotlights Prof. Hugh Herr and his work developing bionic limbs at the MIT Media Lab, reports Dana Gerber for The Boston Globe. “The long-term hope for the procedure is that people with Ewing amputations will be able to further adapt to the bionic limbs shown in the film, which Herr’s team is developing at MIT,” writes Gerber.
New York Times reporter Amanda Morris speaks with Eric Baker, an avid outdoorsperson with chronic debilitating joint diseases, about the GRIT Freedom chair, an all-terrain wheelchair invented by MIT researchers. “With the new chair, Mr. Baker hops curbs, hunts, visits the beach, and can cross mud, rocks and gravel,” writes Morris.
Forbes contributor Stephanie MacConnell spotlights the work of research affiliate Shriya Srinivasan PhD '20 in a roundup of women under the age of 30 who are transforming U.S. healthcare. Srinivasan is “working on technology that will enable patients to control and even ‘feel’ sensation through their prosthetic limb,” notes MacConnell.
Forbes contributor Bruce Y. Lee writes that MIT researchers have found that lack of sleep can affect a person’s gait and that catching up on sleep can improve gait control for those who are chronically sleep deprived. Lee writes that the findings demonstrate how, “lack of sleep may affect your ability to move your body and navigate in subtle ways.”
Reporting for the PBS NewsHour, Miles O’Brien visits alumnus Dexter Ang ‘05 to learn more about how his startup, Pison, is developing a wrist-worn sensor that detects the faint electrical signals controlling simple hand gestures, allowing users to control digital interfaces using brain signals. “The device is connected to a smartphone, allowing control of it or other devices, conveyor belts in factories, drones, even pinball machines, to name a few,” notes O’Brien. He adds that Ang was inspired by his late mother, who contracted ALS, as “he wanted to make her life easier.”
Professor Xuanhe Zhao and his colleagues have developed a new soft robotic prosthetic hand that offers the wearer more tactile control. “You can use it to grab something as thin and fragile as a potato chip, or grasp another hand in a firm-but-safe handshake,” writes Mark Wilson for Fast Company. “By design, this rubbery, air-filled hand is naturally compliant.”