Fast Company reporter Katharine Schwab spotlights MIT startup Embr Labs, which has developed a wearable device that can help keep users cool. “Cooling individuals could be a lot cheaper and less wasteful than cooling entire buildings,” writes Schwab.
CSAIL’s RoboRaise robot can successfully execute the Bottle Cap Challenge, removing a bottle cap with a well-placed kick, reports Darrell Etherington for TechCrunch. Etherington explains that the robot, “can mirror the actions of a human just by watching their bicep. This has a number of practical applications, including potentially assisting a person to lift large or awkward objects.”
In this video, Mashable highlights how CSAIL researchers have developed a new system that can help lift heavy objects by mirroring human activity. The system uses sensors that monitor muscle activity and detect changes in the user’s arm.
Popular Science reporter Rob Verger writes that MIT researchers have developed a new mechanical system that can help humans lift heavy objects. “Overall the system aims to make it easier for people and robots to work together as a team on physical tasks,” explains graduate student Joseph DelPreto.
Prof. Rosalind Picard speaks with NBC Mach reporter Jessica Wapner about how wearable devices could be used to help detect and predict episodes of depression. “We’d love to get to you before you get depressed,” explains Picard, “and help you put things back in your life before you get in trouble.”
Prof. Pattie Maes writes for Wired about how wearable medical technology is becoming an increasingly mainstream component of therapeutic intervention. “While we need to be careful to make sure these designs safeguard privacy, give complete control to the user and avoid dependency whenever possible,” writes Maes, “there are countless possibilities for digital, wearable technologies to supplement and even replace traditional drugs and therapy.”
Natasha Frost of Quartz speaks with graduate student Mostafa Mohsenvand about his work developing a new wearable device that could one day be used to help people with memory loss. Frost writes the device may help those suffering with Alzheimer’s by “making memories instantly accessible externally for those who may otherwise be unable to recall them.”
Spencer Kelly of BBC Click tests Dormio, a wearable device that allows researchers to track a user’s consciousness in the state between asleep and awake. “[R]esearch shows that you have a ten times increase in the likelihood of solving a problem if you have a dream about that problem in a nap,” says MIT graduate student Adam Haar Horowitz.
BBC News reporter Jane Wakefield writes about Dormio, a new device developed by Media Lab researchers that awakens users before they enter deep sleep in an attempt to study the period between wakefulness and deep sleep. “I see a future in which sleep is more useful and more accessible to us, where we understand it better," says graduate student Adam Haar Horowitz.
Fast Company reporter Steven Melendez writes that CSAIL researchers have created a new system that allows a robot to detect human brainwave patterns so it knows when it made a mistake. Melendez explains that, “Teaching robots to understand human nonverbal cues and signals could make them safer and more efficient at working with people.”
MIT researchers have developed a system that allows people to use a combination of brain waves and muscle signals to stop and redirect a robot, writes John Biggs for TechCrunch. “The machine adapts to you, and not the other way around,” explains graduate student Joseph DelPreto.
MIT researchers have developed a system that “lets a person control a robotic arm with brainwaves and subtle hand gestures,” reports Jesus Diaz for Co.Design. According to Prof. Daniela Rus, the goal is “to develop robotic systems that are a more natural and intuitive extension of us.”
Empatica, a startup co-founded by Prof. Rosalind Picard, is hoping to use the same data gathered by its wearable device Embrace, which “analyzes physiological signals to detect seizures,” to help people manage stress, reports Rina Raphael of Fast Company. “We’re developing the applications that can help people understand stress,” says Picard, “the technology is there.”
NECN’s Brian Shactman interviews MIT alumnus Sam Shames for this “Tech Check” segment about the Embr Wave, a wristband developed by Shames and others to help the wearer feel cooler or warmer. “There’s actually a piece of technology to make it easier for all of us to get along when it comes to temperature,” declares Schactman.
In this video, Mashable spotlights AlterEgo, a wearable device that allows for silent communication between human and machine. The video notes that graduate student Arnav Kapur’s goal in developing the device was to, “create something to let people communicate silently and without being obtrusive to each other.”