Health tech

For many urban dwellers who live close to work, commuting by bike is like eating vegetables. You know you should, but sometimes you just want the burger and fries.

Industrial designer Adam Taylor, who is working toward a master's degree in future design in England, has devised a system that he thinks will help motivate commuters to pedal to the office. The two key features are the system's self-powered smart card and the bike itself, which is a beauty.

On the blog Bicycle Design, Taylor says he envisions the bike, which he calls "Tim," and the system, which he calls "Go Fara," to be bought in bulk by major corporations that institute a "green employee of the week" rewards program. Using the smart card, the employer has access to mileage and time stats to reward the highest achievers.… Read more

I had that dream again the other night. The one where I (oops!) forgot to go to class all semester and it's time for the final, and OMG, but wait, maybe somehow I can fake my way through it?

Apparently, this dream plans to dog me no matter how far away from college I get. I've had it so many times it deserves its own soundtrack. And now, it turns out, it can get one.

Computer scientists from Finland's University of Helsinki have developed software that makes music out of sleep patterns. … Read more

It's been 12 years since Chad Ruble's mother suffered a stroke that led to aphasia, a disorder that affects language processing but not intelligence. Most of the one million Americans who have the disorder experience difficulty both reading and writing, according to the National Aphasia Association, and Chad's mother Lindy was unable to recognize text and thus unable to use a keyboard.

So Chad did what any computer-savvy son should: he hacked a Kinect to help her.

After designing a visual dashboard of emoticons (happy, sad, angry, tired, etc.), each of which can be further qualified by an amount (expressed as signal strength -- one, two, three, or four bars), Chad says he turned to a Kinect, some gesture recognition code, and the simple OpenNI library for Processing to track the position of his mother's hand. A green arrow button sends the email and a red X resets the screen.… Read more

Color blindness, also known as color vision deficiency, is not an issue I've had to deal with. In fact, it's not something that crops up in women much. Statistics show about 1 in 10 men have some form of color blindness, so if you're not color blind yourself, you probably know someone who is.

That means there's a good chunk of the population that wouldn't mind a little assist in the color department. This is where sunglasses maker EnChroma hopes to make its mark. … Read more

It's still no match for the human hand, but RSL Steeper's BeBionic 3 looks way cooler.

The company is launching a more powerful, durable version of its prosthetic today at a gathering of the American Orthotic Prosthetic Association (AOPA) in Boston.

The BeBionic 3 has an aluminum chassis, improved electronics, a redesigned thumb, and new motors that increase the power grip strength from 16.8 pounds to 31.5 pounds, according to SteeperUSA.

In hook mode, when a weight is carried by all fingers, the hand can bear 99 pounds, up from 70.5 pounds. … Read more

A team of engineers out of Stanford is introducing a truly tiny wireless cardiac device to demonstrate that, thanks to a little ingenuity and impressive math, all medical implants may soon be powered wirelessly.

Which means that devices such as pacemakers, which owe the majority of their bulk to the battery, are about to get a whole lot smaller.

Head researcher Ada Poon, who earlier this year showed off a proof-of-concept, wirelessly powered device small enough to propel itself through the bloodstream, says the main achievement with the cardiac device is that it can be implanted on the surface of … Read more

Power suits are getting more commonplace. A paralyzed British woman has become the first person to take home a robotic exoskeleton that helped her walk the London Marathon earlier this year.

Claire Lomas, who finished the 26.2-mile race over 17 days, is setting the pace for home use of the ReWalk at home, according to Israeli maker Argo Medical Technologies.

The 32-year-old mother was paralyzed from the chest down after a 2007 horseback riding accident, but the motorized legs allow her to stand, climb and descend stairs, and walk around independently. … Read more

Connecting to a wireless scale through your computer is so first-quarter 2012. Now, if you're willing to drop $150 on the new Withings Wireless Scale WS-30, all you need is a Bluetooth-enabled smartphone or tablet to do the trick.

Withings, the French technology company best known for its sleek wireless scales for adults and babies alike, just announced its latest offering at IFA 2012 in Berlin and says the WS-30 will be available in Europe in late September (PDF). Its new (and free) Health Companion app, which helps users track not just weight and BMI (body mass index) but … Read more

Internet addiction is real, researchers out of the University of Bonn say, and its source can be explained at the molecular level.

Researchers from the school's departments of psychology and neuroscience report in the September 2012 issue of the Journal of Addiction Medicine that a simple variation on the CHRNA4 gene results in a significantly higher prevalence of Internet addiction -- and particularly in women.

"Internet addiction is not a figment of our imagination," lead author Christian Montag says in a news release. "The current data already shows that there are clear indications for genetic causes of Internet addiction... If such connections are better understood, this will also result in important indications for better therapies."… Read more