Ultrahuman is a health-tech brand that's best known for its wearable devices, particularly its smart rings. Now, the company has launched its continuous glucose monitor in the US. The Ultrahuman M1 CGM (continuous glucose monitor) was released in the the UK, Netherlands and India back in June 2021, formerly known as Ultrahuman Cyborg. It proved to be a huge success, with many consumers raving about its insights.

The Ultrahuman M1 CGM is worn on the back of the arm and measures the user's blood sugar continually for a period of 14 days. After that, it pairs with the Ultrahuman app over Bluetooth to show the gathered data in real time. The Ultrahuman app is designed to provide users suggestions on how to increase their metabolism by demonstrating how their food and level of fitness affect it. It may easily fit into any daily routine because it is water-resistant for 30 minutes and up to 2 meters.

A New Era In Metabolic Health‍

The primary attraction of the M1 is its capacity to offer prompt feedback on an individual's glucose levels, a crucial indicator of metabolic well-being.

Related South Korean CGM Receives Regulatory Approval

By pairing the device with the Abbott FreeStyle Libre sensor, customers may use a smartphone app to track their blood sugar levels in real time. This feature is a game-changer for anyone trying to learn more about how different foods impact their body; it's more than just a convenience. The M1 is easy to use without compromising accuracy or dependability, with suggestions to replace the adhesive sensor patch every two weeks and a simple NFC scanning process for Bluetooth connection. Additionally, its 30-minute 30-meter water resistance guarantees that it blends in perfectly with its users' varied and active lifestyles, reports bnn.

You can order the Ultrahuman M1 CGM now in a variety of bundles (as spotted by T3). It costs $239 for a month (with two sensors), $559 for three months (six sensors), or $1,919 for a year (a total of 26 sensors). That's with the current 20% offer applied, which will only last for a limited time.

Archinisis is redefining rowing performance analysis with its latest sensor technology. This innovation captures real-time data, offering athletes and coaches immediate insights into stroke efficiency and rowing dynamics. Designed for simplicity and effectiveness, it seamlessly integrates into daily training routine to enhance training and competitive performance.

To enhance the rowing experience, Archinisis' technology is not only about capturing data but also about understanding it in the context of rowing dynamics. The tool's design focuses on easy setup and operation, allowing coaches to concentrate on observing athletes and providing feedback rather than technical configurations and cumbersome data analysis. By providing detailed yet easily understandable feedback on stroke rate, boat speed, and other crucial metrics, it allows for a modern, data-driven training approach.

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The real-time feedback offers coaches immediate insights into a boat’s performance, allowing for on-the-spot adjustments. By attaching a sensor to the boat, it captures and streams motion data to a server that calculates key metrics like stroke rate, speed, and pace. This information is readily available on any device, anywhere, with no distance limitations affecting access.

Selected national and high-performance university rowing teams are already utilizing this technology for various purposes, including monitoring training sessions, tracking progress, optimizing team composition, and analyzing race performance.
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For more information visit Archinisis’ website: https://www.archinisis.ch/sports/rowing.html ‍

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About Archinisis:

Archinisis, founded in 2018, is at the forefront of developing sophisticated performance analysis technology, aimed at enhancing athletic performance across various sports disciplines. Their mission revolves around providing precise and actionable insights through advanced yet easy-to-use sensor technology and analytics, enabling athletes and coaches to refine strategies and optimize performance.

Those who have lost the ability to move their legs may be able to stand and maybe walk again thanks to a new robotic exoskeleton. Through holding them up and guiding their motions while they participate in rehabilitative therapy, it may also help them walk unassisted once more.

The lower-body exoskeleton, called Twin, was shown on Friday at a press conference at the Museum of Science and Technology in Milan. It is the product of Italian design, reports Ben Coxworth in New Atlas.

Scientists from the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (the Italian Institute of Technology) and the Istituto Nazionale Assicurazione Infortuni sul Lavoro (the National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work) are developing it; it is now only in prototype form.

It is designed for individuals whose lower body motor function is limited or nonexistent. The motors in question move the patient's legs through the knee and hip joints. The onboard battery that powers those motors is said to be capable of providing four hours of operation on a single hour of charge.

Twin can be utilized in three different operational modes.

The exoskeleton moves the user's legs in the Walk mode, which is designed for individuals who have no use of their legs at all. It also assists the user in sitting and standing. As with previous helpful exoskeletons, such those manufactured by ReWalk, the user still requires crutches for balance.

Related Exoskeleton Designed to Prevent Overextension of Finger

Retrain mode lets patients walk as independently as possible while providing an adjustable level of help as necessary. It is designed for those who still have some lower-limb motor function. The exoskeleton is directing them toward a preset ideal leg-movement trajectory during the procedure.

Lastly, there is the TwinCare mode, designed for people who can fully use one leg but not the other. In this instance, the exoskeleton increases the afflicted leg's range of motion to match that of the healthy leg. Using a wirelessly connected Android tablet, a physiotherapist or the user themselves can adjust gait parameters including stride length/type and walking speed in all three modes.

Twin's modular design, which permits components to be removed for transportation or updating, and its use of lightweight materials—aluminum alloy rather than steel, for example—are two qualities that, according to its designers, set it apart from other exoskeletons of a similar type.

Since the end of 2013, the device has been in development, and production should presumably start soon. In the video below, you can see it in action.

Sometimes our bodies need a boost. Millions of Americans rely on pacemakers—small devices that regulate the electrical impulses of the heart in order to keep it beating smoothly. But to reduce complications, researchers would like to make these devices even smaller and less intrusive.

A team of researchers with the University of Chicago has developed a wireless device, powered by light, that can be implanted to regulate cardiovascular or neural activity in the body. The featherlight membranes, thinner than a human hair, can be inserted with minimally invasive surgery and contain no moving parts, reports Louise Lerner in UChicago News.

Published Feb. 21 in Nature, the results could help reduce complications in heart surgery and offer new horizons for future devices.
“The early experiments have been very successful, and we’re really hopeful about the future for this translational technology,” said Pengju Li, a graduate student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and first author on the paper.

A new frontier

The laboratory of Prof. Bozhi Tian has been developing devices for years that can use technology similar to solar cells to stimulate the body. Photovoltaics are attractive for this purpose because they do not have moving parts or wires that can break down or become intrusive—especially useful in delicate tissues like the heart. And instead of a battery, researchers simply implant a tiny optic fiber alongside to provide power.

But for the best results, the scientists had to tweak the system to work for biological purposes, rather than how solar cells are usually designed.

“In a solar cell, you want to collect as much sunlight as possible and move that energy along the cell no matter what part of the panel is struck,” explained Li. “But for this application, you want to be able to shine a light at a very localized area and activate only that one area.”

For example, a common heart therapy is known as cardiac resynchronization therapy, where different parts of the heart are brought back into sync with precisely timed charges. In current therapies, that’s achieved with wires, which can have their own complications.

Related Novel Cable System for Heart Pumps Doesn’t Cause Infections

Li and the team set out to create a photovoltaic material that would only activate exactly where the light struck.

The eventual design they settled on has two layers of a silicon material known as P-type, which respond to light by creating electrical charge. The top layer has many tiny holes—a condition known as nanoporosity—which boost the electrical performance and concentrate electricity without allowing it to spread.

The result is a miniscule, flexible membrane, which can be inserted into the body via a tiny tube along with an optic fiber—a minimally invasive surgery. The optic fiber lights up in a precise pattern, which the membrane picks up and turns into electrical impulses.

The membrane is just a single micrometer thin—about 100 times smaller than the finest human hair—and a few centimeters square. It weighs less than one fiftieth of a gram; significantly less than current state-of-the-art pacemakers, which weigh at least five grams. “The more lightweight a device is, the more comfortable it typically is for patients,” said Li.

“This advancement is a game-changer in cardiac resynchronization therapy,” said Narutoshi Hibino, professor of surgery at the University of Chicago Medicine and co-corresponding author on the study. “We're at the cusp of a new frontier where bioelectronics can seamlessly integrate with the body's natural functions.”

Light use

Though the first trials were conducted with heart tissue, the team said the approach could be used for neuromodulation as well—stimulating nerves in movement disorders like Parkinson’s, for example, or to treat chronic pain or other disorders. Li coined the term ‘photoelectroceuticals’ for the field.

Tian said the day when they first tried the pacemaker in trials with pig hearts, which are very similar to those of humans, remains vivid in his memory. “I remember that day because it worked in the very first trial,” he said. “It's both a miraculous achievement and a reward for our extensive efforts.”

The research team is currently working with the UChicago Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation to commercialize the device.

In the ever-evolving field of healthcare technology, Medicsen emerges as a bold innovator, shaping the future for people living with diabetes. Driven by the desire to eliminate the pain and inconvenience associated with traditional diabetes management, Medicsen has developed a revolutionary solution: the Medicsen Smartpatch.

Imagine, a world where managing diabetes is painless, discreet, and personalized. The Medicsen Smartpatch makes this vision a reality. This needle-free, wearable device acts as a smart companion, simulating the functions of the pancreas and delivering essential medications directly through the skin.

Utilizing harmless waves, the Smartpatch painlessly opens natural skin pores, allowing macromolecules like insulin and heparin to enter the body. This innovative technology ensures maximum comfort and discretion, tucked away in a small, wearable device.

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About Medicsen

Medicsen was founded in 2023 and has quickly developed into an award-winning start-up in the field of medical technology. The company specializes in pain-free drug delivery through the skin and wearable devices for patients with chronic diseases. The company focuses on developing user-friendly and pain-free solutions for a better quality of life.

MIT researchers have created smart gloves that have the ability to record, transmit, and provide customized haptic input. Technology has the potential to improve both in-person and virtual learning environments.

The training code and experimental data have been made openly available to interested parties by the researchers.

The scientists weave haptic actuators, similar to those found in smartphones, into textiles using a digital sewing machine. The sensations that can simulate holding an object or hitting a button are replicated in the present iteration, reports TechSpot.

The gloves have the potential to bring novel teaching approaches by means of recording feelings and transferring them between users. One way a piano teacher tested the technology was by having students record a song by feeling the keys as they were pressed. When hovering over the appropriate keys, students using smart gloves might experience the same sensation, bringing a tangible component to digitally transmitted education to mimic hands-on training.

Training gloves could also be used by firefighters, pilots, and surgeons. They might also assist humans in teaching robots or provide them with more precise direct control. The researchers used haptic feedback to guide a robot in precisely how much pressure to use when handling fragile goods.

Additionally, a machine learning phase adapts the haptic feedback and gloves to each user according on their hand measurements and reactions. It takes only 15 seconds to personalize a pair of gloves, and about 10 minutes to make a pair for a new user. The fact that each person experiences tactile feedback differently makes this technological feature essential.

Related Researchers Develop Smart Gloves for Safe Surgery

Video games that were tailored to use the haptic feedback for activities like driving and rhythmic following were also used in the experiments. More accurate tactile reception is made possible by individualized sensation, as demonstrated by the superior performance of players with optimized feedback compared to those with unoptimized haptics.

Accuracy might rise with additional development, and the technology could be used for other activities. Smart textiles for less sensitive body parts—like the hands—may become possible with stronger haptics. More sophisticated AI might be used to imitate more difficult jobs like flying an airplane or shaping clay. More user data may result in more realistic tactile simulation and better-fitting gloves.

Linxens is a leading company in the world for designing and producing smartcard inlays and connections. In addition to expanding into allied fields like RFID and reel-to-reel flexible electronics, Linxens is entering new markets for its early warning odor sensors for Li-ion batteries used in electric cars.

The CEO of Linxens, Cuong Duong, stated that the company has a long history, having created the micro-connector more than 40 years ago, which is a crucial part in the creation of the smart card. Linxens carried on with its firm, concentrating on creating cutting-edge technologies in various fields.

Linxens has expanded its scope of expertise over time to include RFID antennas and inlays, which are essential parts of RFID tags used in a variety of applications such as supply chain management, contactless payment systems, and hospitality, reports David Savastano, Editor of Printed Electronics.

“The world's biggest technology players entrust us with their projects in the fields of payments, telecoms, identity, access control, hospitality and leisure and logistics, etc.,” Duong said. “Leveraging on its knowledge in micro-connectors, Linxens contributed to the development of flexible electronic solutions, which are applied in diverse industries such as wearables, healthcare, and automotive.

Read more Wellysis ECG Patch Hits US, Indian Markets

“Today, with over 120 billion micro-connectors and more than 6 billion RFID antennas produced, Linxens is the global specialist in the design and manufacture of these electronic components,” added Duong. “Linxens is exploring new fields in which to apply its technological expertise, such as connected healthcare or authentication and traceability for the IoT or identification for the government.”

Duong pointed out that Linxens places a high priority on innovation and customer service in a number of areas, including government, healthcare, and the Internet of Things.

Duong believes Linxens has a promising future as it seeks to enter new markets.

“Linxens’ objective is to be the leader in all its historical market segments by enabling technology to facilitate the consumer’s life and providing more secure, reliable and sustainable solutions,” Duong concluded. “Linxens is striving to maximize its diversification strategy through innovation on new markets, including healthcare and IoT solutions.”

Building off the announcement of the Snapdragon AR1 Platform in October 2023, Avegant is collaborating with Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and Applied Materials, Inc. to create a blueprint for lightweight, wireless AI smart glasses. This sleek design is under evaluation by Fortune 100 companies, with products expected to be in the market soon.

This AI smart glass architecture brings together industry-leading augmented reality (AR) technology providers to unlock a new wave of AR glass innovation. It features the smallest 30° LCoS light engine in the market -- Avegant's AG-30L2 -- along with Applied Materials' high-efficiency waveguides and Qualcomm Technologies' latest Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 Platform, delivering full color, binocular, bright daylight-capable experiences.

"Our AG-30L2 incorporates innovative illumination and optical designs to significantly reduce the light engine volume, enabling our customers to build true, glasses-like form factor products. The AG-30L2 is in production now and seeing extraordinary adoption and excitement from customers thanks to its small form factor and performance. We are excited to help bring AI smart glasses powered by the Snapdragon AR1 to market," said Ed Tang, CEO of Avegant.

"The Snapdragon AR1 Platform is the first XR platform designed for AI smart glasses. Packed with next-generation technology, the platform is the perfect blend of intelligence and style with support for binocular displays, premium dual ISPs, powerful on-device AI, and blazing fast connectivity. We are excited to work with Avegant and Applied Materials to bring this exciting AI glass category to life," said Said Bakadir, Senior Director, Product Management at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

Related These AR Glasses Can Translate Languages and Detect Images

"Consumers want stylish AR smart glasses that provide brilliant clarity and are comfortable to wear on a daily basis. Our waveguide technology offers unparalleled efficiencies and enables crisp and clear images in a lightweight form factor," said Paul Meissner, VP and GM of Applied Materials' Photonics Platforms Business in the Office of the CTO. "We are excited by the opportunity to co-optimize our leading component devices with Qualcomm Technologies and Avegant to create compelling user experiences."

About Avegant

Avegant is a well-funded, venture-backed technology company developing next-generation display technology to enable previously impossible augmented reality experiences. The company uses its deep scientific understanding of human sight and head-mounted display ergonomics together with its consumer electronics manufacturing experience to develop displays that enable realistic AR experiences for consumers. Avegant's AR Light Engines will enable customers to provide a compelling AR experience in a consumer wearable AR device.

People can attend events without traveling by using a humanoid robot that can transmit touch and video sensations to an individual hundreds of kilometers away, provided they are wearing haptic feedback gloves and a virtual reality (VR) headset.

The iCub 3 robot has 54 points of movement throughout its plastic and aluminum alloy body. It weighs 52 kg and is 125 centimeters tall. Two cameras replace the eyes on its head, and an internet-connected computer sits where the brain should be. The robot's "brain" receives data from sensors all over its body in addition to the cameras. A remote human operator then dons a suit and VR headgear to simulate these sensations, reports Chris Stokel-Walker in NewScientist.

The suit's sensors detect the operator's motions in response to their senses, and the robot mimics those movements. “The key is to translate every signal and bit of numeric data that can be sent through the network,” explains Stefano Dafarra, an iCub 3 team member from the Italian Institute of Technology. The operator can reduce this by moving a little more slowly than usual. There may be a tiny delay of up to 100 milliseconds between the time the video footage is captured and transmitted.

The robot was shown off by the team during the Venice Biennale, where it navigated an exhibit while its operator watched from Genoa, 290 kilometers away.

Read more Accelerating the Production of Soft Robots

Dafarra anticipates that more people will utilize the iCub 3 to attend events virtually, cutting down on travel time. However, he notes that a fall may currently seriously harm the robot and that it's not sure if it could get back up on its own.

“iCub 3 is an interesting robot and offers clear advantages from the previous iteration,” says Jonathan Aitken at the University of Sheffield, UK, whose laboratory owns a prior version of the robot. However, he is disappointed that the team wasn’t clear in its research about the data transmission requirements of the new version of the robot. “It would be good to know just how much data was required, and what the upper and lower bounds were,” he says.

According to technology engineers who spoke exclusively to CNN, a tiny surgical robot living aboard the International Space Station successfully executed its first surgery demonstration in zero gravity on Saturday.

The Miniaturized In Vivo Robotic Assistant, or spaceMIRA, operated the robot remotely from Lincoln, Nebraska, some 250 miles (400 kilometers) below the surface, carrying out many procedures on simulated tissue at the orbiting laboratory.

This milestone is a significant advancement in technology that may have ramifications not only for safe, extended human space travel, where medical emergencies may arise, but also for expanding access to healthcare in isolated parts of the planet, reports CNN.

The US wants to push space exploration farther, which might lead to years-long missions. According to NASA, a round-way voyage to Mars could take up to two years.

A robotic tool built for space

The robot weighs only 2 pounds (0.9 kilograms), making it a lightweight space instrument due to its compact microwave-size construction. According to Shane Farritor, cofounder and chief technology officer of Virtual Incision, the business that produced spaceMIRA, the tool mimics human movements by using two arms: the left arm for grasping and the right arm for cutting, with a component of the gadget injected into the body to perform surgery.

“It gives smaller hands and eyes to the surgeon (on Earth) and allows them to perform a lot of procedures minimally invasively,” Farritor said, who has been helping to develop the technology for 20 years.

SpaceMIRA hitched a ride on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on January 30 from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and arrived at the space station on February 1.

Related Johnson & Johnson Partners With Microsoft For Digital Surgery Solutions

How the demo played out

During the demonstration on Saturday, Farritor explained, the remote surgeon had to manipulate the robots' hands to apply strain to the rubber band-based synthetic tissue, and then use the other hand to cut the elastic tissue with scissors. Six surgeons in total conducted remote tests with the robot, and each demonstration—which involved cutting the appropriate piece of tissue under pressure, a typical surgical procedure, according to Farritor—was considered effective.

Latency, or the interval of time between a command being delivered and the robot receiving it, is one of the difficulties in trying to control a robot in space from Earth. Doctor. Michael Jobst, a colorectal surgeon who participated in the spaceMIRA event on Saturday, estimated that the delay was approximately 0.85 seconds.

“In a live patient, if there is bleeding, it’s my job to stop that bleeding immediately. But to have an 800 to 850 millisecond lag between seeing the blood loss and then doing something about it, I mean, effectively that’s like… saying, OK, one Mississippi, two, and then I get to go ahead and fix the problem,” said Jobst, who was one of the first surgeons to use the terrestrial MIRA on humans in clinical studies. He said he has performed a total of 15 operations on human patients with the terrestrial version of MIRA, which is an investigational device not available for sale.

“Five seconds would be an eternity in surgery, and a split second or a half a second is going to be significant. So, this was a big challenge,” Jobst said. Even with the noticeable time delay, the surgeons succeeded in completing the tasks, he said.

SpaceMIRA is set to return to Earth in the spring.

“NASA wants to go further, and the long duration spaceflight will place new demands on medical care in a lot of ways,” said Farritor, who is also a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Nebraska. “There’s a lot of questions that have yet to be answered here. … We just wanted to show what’s possible, and we think it’s a really good step in the right direction.”

With telesurgery, care is more accessible

According to a news release from the University of Nebraska, the results of MIRA are also useful for increasing surgical alternatives on Earth, such as in rural areas or military battlefields.

“There are a lot of places in the US … that don’t have access to specialists, and if you could perform telesurgery like this, where you could have an expert dial in from a larger city into a rural area and assist with some surgical care, I think that’s got huge advantages,” Farritor said.

SpaceMIRA has the same form and function as its Earthbound predecessor, but it is 3 inches (7.6 cm) shorter due to spaceflight restrictions, he said.

Bose introduced a breakthrough audio wearable that lets you hear the world around you while still enjoying your music uninterrupted. The new Bose Ultra Open Earbuds don't plug into your canal and cut you off from the outside world, but clasp onto the side of your ears like cuffs. They provide amazing comfort for all-day wear without making you choose between immersive audio and awareness.

“The one bud phenomenon is real. We know people want a way to listen to their music while still being connected to the world around them,” said Raza Haider, chief product officer, Bose. “We set out to completely reimagine the future of wearable audio and deliver a better, more beautiful, and comfortable solution to provide the best of both worlds. The Bose Ultra Open Earbuds do just that. Now you can enjoy your music and life, all at the same time.”

Designing the Future of Wearable Audio

The buds feature a stunning design with polished, soft edges and a brushed metallic finish to make them appear more like a fashion accessory than a traditional audio wearable. And, because they attach to the side of your ear, you can wear them with glasses, a hat, or jewelry and they won't interfere. They were also engineered for comfort and stability — a special flex arm coated in super-soft silicone connects the speaker to the battery barrel, so it rests gently on your skin for hours, while providing a light-as-air grip to keep the earbuds secure on almost any ear.  

Bose Open Audio & Bose Immersive Audio

The Ultra Open Earbuds provide high-quality audio using Bose proprietary OpenAudio technology. This feat of engineering combines a powerful transducer with a tightly controlled acoustic structure to precisely deliver clear sound to your ear with almost no sound leaks to the world around you — so only you can hear and feel every beat of your music.

Powered by proprietary Bose digital signal processing software and an onboard IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), Ultra Open Earbuds also feature Bose Immersive Audio to bring you closer than ever to your music, virtually seating you right in the acoustic sweet spot as if it were playing beyond your earbuds on a stage in front of you.

Additional Details

The Bose Ultra Open Earbuds come in Black and White Smoke and feature an easy-to-use physical button on the top of the barrel that rests behind your ear, providing simple access to play, pause, skip, adjust volume, and more. They also include an option — available through the Bose Music app — to enable Auto Volume. This feature intelligently adjusts the volume of your audio based on the sound level of your surroundings, so your music stays at the right level as you move from place to place. And they're built to last with an IPX4 rating for water and sweat resistance.

Related Bose and Lexie Hearing Partner on Self-Fitting Hearing Aids

They provide up to 7.5 hours of battery life on a single charge when Bose Immersive Audio is turned off (up to 4.5 hours when Immersive Audio is turned on) or up to 48 hours of standby time. The charging case also provides up to 19.5 additional hours (or up to 12 hours of Immersive Audio), and the buds take one hour to fully charge while a 10-minute quick-charge provides two hours of playtime.  

The earbuds feature Snapdragon Sound Technology Suite, including the latest Qualcomm aptX Adaptive codec for audio streaming — for lossless and low latency capabilities — and providing more seamless, robust connectivity with premium Android devices. They also offer Google Fast Pair for added ease-of-use when pairing Android devices and are Bluetooth® 5.3 compatible.

About Bose Corporation

Bose is world renowned for its premium audio solutions for the home, on the go, and in the car. Since its founding in 1964 by Dr. Amar Bose, the company has been dedicated to delivering amazing sound experiences through innovation. For nearly 60 years, this belief has driven us to create products that have become iconic, changing the way people listen to music.

For many patients waiting for a donor heart, the only way to live a decent life is with the help of a pump attached directly to their heart. This pump requires about as much power as a TV, which it draws from an external battery via a seven-millimeter-thick cable. The system is handy and reliable, but it has one big flaw: despite medical treatment, the point at which the cable exits the abdomen can be breached by bacteria.

ETH Zurich researcher and engineer Andreas Kourouklis is working to soon make this problem a thing of the past. With the support of ETH Zurich Professor Edoardo Mazza and physicians from the German Heart Centre in Berlin, Kourouklis has developed a new cable system for heart pumps that doesn’t cause infections. This is particularly important given that wireless methods of transmitting power remain unavailable to patients in the foreseeable future. Kourouklis has received a Pioneer Fellowship from ETH Zurich to advance his technology, reports Christoph Elhardt in ETH Zurich.

Thin wires with craters instead of a thick cable

“The thick cable used in existing ventricular assist systems creates an open wound that doesn’t heal and severely compromises patients’ quality of life”, Kourouklis says. Scar tissue with a limited blood supply forms around the exit point. This not only impairs the skin’s ability to heal itself but also increases the risk of infection. Since the outer layers of the skin are wounded and loosely attached to the flat surface of the thick cable, they grow in downwards. As a result, bacteria can travel from the surface of the skin into deeper tissue layers, often leading to patients having to struggle with infections and rehospitalization.

The ETH Zurich researchers have come up with a technology to remedy the situation. Instead of powering the heart pump via a thick cable that is much stiffer than human skin, they use several thin and flexible wires with a rough, irregular surface. Kourouklis and his team compare their approach with the way in which human hair breaks through the skin without causing infections: “More flexible wires whose surface is full of microscopic craters help the skin heal,” Kourouklis says. The reason for this is that the outermost layers of skin adhere better to these wires and don’t grow inwards. New tissue forms more quickly, and the skin is more likely to remain intact as a barrier against bacterial infection.

Water drops create tiny craters

To create craters on the cables’ surface, a team of engineers led by Kourouklis and Mazza have developed a new process that allows the creation of very small, irregular patterns on surfaces that are not flat – something that had not been possible before.

Related New Biocompatible Ink for Heart Valve Repair

This method, which is currently patented at ETH Zurich, entails coating the flexible cables with a thin silicone layer and cooling them to minus 20 degrees Celsius. The surface of the cables thus become malleable. They are then put into a condensation chamber, where small droplets of water are pressed into the liquid layer of silicone, creating microscopic craters. “We can control the position of the craters on the cables by adjusting the humidity and temperature in the condensation chamber,” Kourouklis says.

The challenge here is that the craters can’t be too large or too small: if they’re too large, bacteria may settle in them and the risk of infection increases; if they’re too small, the skin does not adhere to them and grows inwards – in which case the risk of infection also increases. A classic optimization problem, which Kourouklis and his team tackle by means of computational and experimental methods in tissue biomechanics and biomaterials.

Kourouklis and his colleagues carried out initial tests on skin cell cultures before implanting both the old and thick cables and their new cable system in a sheep. The results make the ETH Zurich researcher optimistic: while the thick cables with a flat surface caused severe inflammation, the thin, flexible cables only showed mild inflammatory reactions. No sheep suffered permanent injuries during the tests.

More important still: in contrast to the thick cables, the sheep’s skin integrated better with the new cables and hardly grew inwards. Accordingly, the thin cables with craters didn’t cause infections in the animals.

Kourouklis is currently working with medical device engineers and heart surgeons to improve the cable system. His goal is to bring the technology to market as soon as possible. But before it can be used on heart patients, a series of tests on skin models, animals and eventually humans will be needed.

Researchers have developed a spiral-shaped lens that maintains clear focus at different distances in varying light conditions. The new lens works much like progressive lenses used for vision correction but without the distortions typically seen with those lenses. It could help advance contact lens technologies, intraocular implants for cataracts and miniaturized imaging systems.

"Unlike existing multifocal lenses, our lens performs well under a wide range of light conditions and maintains multifocality regardless of the size of the pupil," said Bertrand Simon from Photonics, Numerical and Nanosciences Laboratory (LP2N), a joint research unit between the Institut d'Optique Graduate School, the University of Bordeaux and the CNRS in France. "For potential implant users or people with age-related farsightedness, it could provide consistently clear vision, potentially revolutionizing ophthalmology."

In Optica, Optica Publishing Group's journal for high-impact research, the researchers describe the new lens, which they call the spiral diopter. Its spiraling features are arranged in a way that creates many separate points of focus -- much like having multiple lenses in one. This makes it possible to see clearly at various distances.

"In addition to ophthalmology applications, the simple design of this lens could greatly benefit compact imaging systems," said Simon. "It would streamline the design and function of these systems while also offering a way to accomplish imaging at various depths without additional optical elements. These capabilities, coupled with the lens's multifocal properties, offer a powerful tool for depth perception in advanced imaging applications"

Creating a vortex of light

The inspiration for the spiral lens design came when the paper's first author, Laurent Galinier from SPIRAL SAS in France, was analyzing the optical properties of severe corneal deformations in patients. This led him to conceptualize a lens with a unique spiral design that causes light to spin, like water going down a drain. This phenomenon, known as an optical vortex, creates multiple clear focus points, which allow the lens to provide clear focus at different distances.

"Creating an optical vortex usually requires multiple optical components," said Galinier. "Our lens, however, incorporates the elements necessary to make an optical vortex directly into its surface. Creating optical vortices is a thriving field of research, but our method simplifies the process, marking a significant advancement in the field of optics."

Related Smart Contact Lens Powered by Salt Water

The researchers created the lens by using advanced digital machining to mold the unique spiral design with high precision. They then validated the lens by using it to image a digital 'E,' much like those used on an optometrist's light-up board. The authors observed that the image quality remained satisfactory regardless of the aperture size used. They also discovered that the optical vortices could be modified by adjusting the topological charge, which is essentially the number of windings around the optical axis. Volunteers using the lenses also reported noticeable improvements in visual acuity at a variety of distances and lighting conditions.

Crossing disciplines

Bringing the new lens to fruition required combining the intuitively crafted design with advanced fabrication techniques through a cross-disciplinary collaboration. "The spiral diopter lens, first conceived by an intuitive inventor, was scientifically substantiated through an intensive research collaboration with optical scientists," said Simon. "The result was an innovative approach to creating advanced lenses."

The researchers are now working to better understand the unique optical vortices produced by their lens. They also plan to perform systematic trials of the lens' ability to correct vision in people to comprehensively establish its performance and advantages in real-world conditions. In addition, they are exploring the possibility of applying the concept to prescription eyeglasses, which could potentially offer users clear vision across multiple distances.

"This new lens could significantly improve people's depth of vision under changing lighting conditions," said Simon. "Future developments with this technology might also lead to advancements in compact imaging technologies, wearable devices and remote sensing systems for drones or self-driving cars, which could make them more reliable and efficient."

The Thermal Earring is a revolutionary wearable gadget developed by researchers at the University of Washington that can continually measure a user's earlobe temperature. In a study with six users, this smart earring—which is intended to serve as both a stylish adornment and a health monitoring tool—showed encouraging results, especially when it came to tracking reproductive health.

"Current wearables like Apple Watch and Fitbit have temperature sensors, but they provide only an average temperature for the day, and their temperature readings from wrists and hands are too noisy to track ovulation," said Shirley (Qiuyue) Xue, who led the study along with Yujia (Nancy) Liu. "So we wanted to explore unique applications for the earring, especially applications that might be attractive to women and anyone who cares about fashion."

Two temperature sensors are included; one dangles in the open below, while the other is magnetically attached to the earlobe. While the latter sensor uses the room temperature as a reference, the former detects the temperature of the earlobe.

The gadget uses a built-in antenna and a Bluetooth Low Energy module to send its readings on a daily basis. In order to conserve energy, it enters sleep mode in between readings. With one charge, the wearable lasts for 28 days thanks to an inbuilt battery.

The earring proved to be more accurate than a smartwatch in taking skin temperature during rest times, according to tests conducted on six volunteers. In addition, it "showed promise" in terms of tracking ovulation and stress in addition to eating and exercising.

The wearer's heart rate and other vital signs may also be monitored by the gadget when it is further developed. It is possible to adorn it with jewels or resin to give the illusion that it is a real piece of jewelry.

For those who are vision impaired, even the seemingly basic task of grocery shopping can be difficult because it can be difficult to distinguish various things.

In order to help them with this and other endeavors, a group of researchers from the School of Computing at the National University of Singapore (NUS Computing) unveiled AiSee, a reasonably priced wearable assistive device that uses artificial intelligence (AI) based on Chat GPT-4 to help people with visual impairments "see" objects around them. In contrast to the majority of wearable assistive devices that need to be paired with a smartphone, AiSee functions as a stand-alone system that doesn't require any other devices to function.

Read more Eyeglass/Contact Lens Prescription Device

A group of scientists at the National University of Singapore have been working on AiSee for the past five years. It appears to be a standard pair of bone-conduction earphones connected by a band that wraps around the back of the wearer's neck. The main goal of the technology is to prevent users from feeling self-conscious, which could happen if they were sporting more recognizable gear, like "smart glasses."

While the other earphone features an external touchpad interface, the forward-facing 13-megapixel camera on one of the earphones records images of the user's surroundings. On the rear of the gadget, which has a wireless internet connection, are a CPU and a lithium battery, reports Ben Coxworth in New Atlas.

Upon picking up an item, say during a grocery buy, the user uses the integrated camera to snap a picture of it. Cloud-based AI algorithms process that image in real time, examining information like the item's size, color, and shape as well as any text found on its labels.

A synthetic voice in the headphones notifies the user of the match if it is for a known object. If they need additional details, they can ask out loud, and maybe the AI will be able to provide.

Crucially, AiSee does not require a connection to a smartphone or any other device, which makes things even easier. Users can still hear their surroundings since the bone-conduction earphones do not completely cover their ears.

Scientists are currently working on improving object identification algorithms, increasing processing speed, and making the technology more ergonomic and inexpensive.

The Frame AI glasses from Brilliant Labs use augmented reality and artificial intelligence to translate languages, recognize photographs, search the internet for information, and more. The wearable gadget resembles a pair of smart glasses with built-in artificial intelligence. In reality, Frame AI eyewear receives coding and technological support from OpenAI, Whisper, and Perplexity to enable them evaluate and notify users about what is going on around them. The AI glasses display the information directly in front of the user's eyes in the Brilliant Labs movie.

They show users the type of building they are looking at, how to translate words they see into the language they understand, and where to locate and purchase the sneakers they have seen online or in the streets. By including an additional pair of lenses in its monocle—dubbed the world's tiniest augmented reality device that attaches to glasses—Brilliant Labs has upped the ante. Users only need to wear the Frame AI glasses to experience augmented reality in both eyes; they do not need to clip anything.

A New Type of AI Assistant

Noa, a new type of AI assistant that Frame has installed, is an always-on AI assistant that resembles Jarvis from the "Iron Man" television series. The company claims that Frame redefines how we interact with physical environments and alters how we see the world. Tavangar claims that because Noa gives people more ability to interact with their surroundings, it is a novel sort of AI virtual assistant.

Noa supposedly becomes a distinct personality through adjusting to the user's interactions. Beyond just translating material into other languages and summarizing pages, the virtual assistant can do more. The gadget can control several AI systems to do complex tasks thanks to its built-in multimodal generative AI.

The integrated multimodal generative AI system that powers the AI glasses can run the GPT-4, Stability AI, and Whisper AI models simultaneously. Noa is now working on unique picture production, real-time speech detection and translation, and real-world visual processing. The startup claims that because of Frame's multimodality, many AI models may work together to provide almost endless possibilities in daily life.

The majority of exoskeletons are large, pricy wearables made to lessen the strain on bodily components like the back, shoulders, and arms. The Artus is unique in that it is designed to shield the fingers. and the price is under $110 USD.

Manufactured by German company Digity, the Artus is designed mainly to keep the finger joints from overextending, reports Ben Coxworth in New Atlas.

This implies that the user's finger would be prevented from stretching backward to the point where tendon or tissue injury would develop in its joints, for example, if they often pressed down on the operating buttons of a machine. This kind of injury usually develops gradually through repeated activities rather than all at once.

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Having said that, cutting and crushing injuries are also protected against by the Artus.

The gadget is made up of three articulated nylon segments—two in the thumb's case—that are connected by polymer/stainless steel joints called DigiLocks. According to reports, such joints permit the finger to easily move within its usual range of motion but lock to prevent the finger from bending backwards more than it should.

Users can maintain the tactile sensitivity required for fine tasks like handling microscopic objects by using openings beneath each fingerpad, which is coated with a thin foam called DigiSkin.

The Artus is currently priced at €100 (about $109) per exoskeleton and is marketed towards industrial corporate clients.

Sensors that monitor infrastructure, such as bridges or buildings, or are used in medical devices, such as prostheses for the deaf, require a constant supply of power. The energy for this usually comes from batteries, which are replaced as soon as they are empty. This creates a huge waste problem. An EU study forecasts that in 2025, 78 million batteries will end up in the rubbish every day.

A new type of mechanical sensor, developed by researchers led by Marc Serra-Garcia and ETH geophysics professor Johan Robertsson, could now provide a remedy. Its creators have already applied for a patent for their invention and have now presented the principle in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, reports Peter Ruegg in ETH Zurich.

Certain sound waves cause the sensor to vibrate

“The sensor works purely mechanically and doesn’t require an external energy source. It simply utilises the vibrational energy contained in sound waves,” Robertsson says.

Whenever a certain word is spoken or a particular tone or noise is generated, the sound waves emitted – and only these – cause the sensor to vibrate. This energy is then sufficient to generate a tiny electrical pulse that switches on an electronic device that has been switched off.

The prototype that the researchers developed in Robertsson’s lab at the Switzerland Innovation Park Zurich in Dübendorf has already been patented. It can distinguish between the spoken words “three” and “four”. Because the word “four” has more sound energy that resonates with the sensor compared to the word “three”, it causes the sensor to vibrate, whereas “three” does not. That means the word “four” could switch on a device or trigger further processes. Nothing would happen with “three”.

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Newer variants of the sensor should be able to distinguish between up to twelve different words, such as standard machine commands like “on”, “off”, “up” and “down”. Compared to the palm-sized prototype, the new versions are also much smaller – about the size of a thumbnail – and the researchers are aiming to miniaturize them further.

Metamaterial without problematic substances

The sensor is what is known as a metamaterial: it’s not the material used that gives the sensor its special properties, but rather the structure. “Our sensor consists purely of silicone and contains neither toxic heavy metals nor any rare earths, as conventional electronic sensors do,” Serra-Garcia says.

The sensor comprises dozens of identical or similarly structured plates that are connected to each other via tiny bars. These connecting bars act like springs. The researchers used computer modelling and algorithms to develop the special design of these microstructured plates and work out how to attach them to each other. It is the springs that determine whether or not a particular sound source sets the sensor in motion.

Monitoring infrastructure

Potential use cases for these battery-free sensors include earthquake or building monitoring. They could, for example, register when a building develops a crack that has the right sound or wave energy.

There is also interest in battery-free sensors for monitoring decommissioned oil wells. Gas can escape from leaks in boreholes, producing a characteristic hissing sound. Such a mechanical sensor could detect this hissing and trigger an alarm without constantly consuming electricity – making it far cheaper and requiring much less maintenance.

Sensor for medical implants

Serra-Garcia also sees applications in medical devices, such as cochlear implants. These prostheses for the deaf require a permanent power supply for signal processing from batteries. Their power supply is located behind the ear, where there is no room for large battery packs. That means the wearers of such devices must replace the batteries every twelve hours. The novel sensors could also be used for the continuous measurement of eye pressure. “There isn’t enough space in the eye for a sensor with a battery,” he says.

“There’s a great deal of interest in zero-energy sensors in industry, too,” Serra-Garcia adds. He no longer works at ETH but at AMOLF, a public research institute in the Netherlands, where he and his team are refining the mechanical sensors. Their aim is to launch a solid prototype by 2027. “If we haven’t managed to attract anyone’s interest by then, we might found our own start-up.”

Flexible conductive fibers developed by researchers at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University can cool and contract without producing stress cracks, permitting them to be woven into cotton clothing.

Earlier attempts to produce fibers with a conductive core and a hardwearing covering have failed. Tiny stress cracks can occur from materials cooling and contracting at different rates during manufacture, or from materials being twisted or washed once in a finished product, which can prevent a smart gadget from functioning.

In order to prevent stress cracks, Lei Wei of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and his associates have now created conductive materials that cool and contract similarly to the aluminosilicate glass found in smartphone screens. The procedure is inexpensive and "industry ready," according to Wei, and it utilizes technology from the production of fiber-optic cable, reports NewScientist.

In this process, a silicon or germanium semiconductor wire is melted to a temperature of approximately 1000°C and then pulled into thin strands. Afterwards, a polymer coating is applied to remove the glass using hydrofluoric acid, enabling a more flexible material. Up to ten kilometers can be covered by the fibers.

After that, little bits of this fiber are woven into a cloth using regular cotton and weaving machinery. Cotton is necessary, according to Wei, to make the clothing comfortable, as the new material feels like "fishing line" next to the skin.

Related: Smart Socks For People With Dementia

The researchers have created a number of prototypes using the fiber, which also include electronic sensors and chips that communicate through the conductive material. These items include a jumper that can receive and decode images transmitted by light pulses rather than radio waves, a watch strap that measures the wearer's heart rate, and a hat that detects when traffic lights change color and transmits the information to a smartphone app.

The clothing was worn, cleaned, and dried numerous times over the course of six months of testing, and the fibers held up and kept conducting electricity.

However, there is still a flaw: after a few months, the connection between the stiff circuit boards and the flexible material that house computer chips and other components usually breaks, rendering the smart features inoperable.

“The only part that always leads to the failure of the test is the connection between the fiber and the outer circuit,” says Wei. “To find a stable way to make the connection, that’s the challenge now.”

Among the world's top and most well-known rock climbers is Alex Honnold. Many movies have been made on his historic climbs, like as the critically acclaimed documentary "Free Solo," which chronicles his quest to scale El Capitan in Yosemite National Park without the use of ropes.

Now, Honnold is making a comeback to television with Arctic Ascent with Alex Honnold, a three-part Disney Plus series in which he attempts to scale the 4,000-foot Ingmikortilaq sea cliff in Greenland with a team of scientists. Before the show's February 4 debut, TechRadar had an interview with Honnold, and TechRadar’s Alex Metz used the chance to question the star about the wearable technology he brings with him on his daring climbs.

“Personally, I wear Whoop,” Honnold told TechRadar, “because I’m sponsored by Whoop and I’ve used them for a bit. I also use a Coros watch sometimes for tracking specific activities, as well as for the GPS, for navigating stuff.

“I’m also using the Levels app right now, the continuous glucose monitor. I’ve been using that for like a month, just to try it out, and see what it’s all about. And I actually have learned a bit about diet [from using Levels]. I’ve obviously tracked my diet in different ways throughout my whole life, I’ve tried to learn different things, and using a glucose monitor has definitely proven another helpful tool.

“But now I kind of feel like a freak,” Honnold laughs, “because I’ve had to sync all of those different things – the Whoop, the Coros, the Levels app, and so on – through Apple Health so that the Levels app will automatically import activities. It’s all a bit too much, so I’m pretty sure that in about a month or two I’ll go back in the other direction and drop all of it. I’ll just keep a general sense of how much activity I do each day using a timer.”

Whoop

Whoop is a great tool for everyone who wants to maximize their sleep and training schedules. The display-free gadget shows a plethora of health-related information, and the Whoop algorithm considers a number of variables before calculating results. These variables include your temperature, heart-rate variability, sleep quality the night before, menstrual cycle stage, and much more.

Related COROS: Arm-Worn Heart Rate Monitor  

The North Face Route Rocket 16 Backpack
As someone who has worked with The North Face for years, Honnold suggests this all-purpose, adaptable pack whether you're traveling by plane or covering long distances across the mountains. “The Route Rocket specifically I like because it’s the right middle ground between having enough structure that it’s comfortable but still light enough,” he says. “There are a lot of really light bags, but then they have no structure to them, so when you put climbing gear or shoes or things into them, it digs into your back.”

Coros

COROS' Heart Rate Monitor integrates advanced multi-channel optical sensors for precise tracking, automatically transmitting heart rate data to three Bluetooth Enabled Devices. With a durable rechargeable battery offering 38 hours of recording and 80 days in standby mode, the monitor features a comfortable fabric band and a low-profile design for seamless wear and minimal distraction during workouts. Easier to wear than a chest strap, the Heart Rate Monitor's soft fabric band secures comfortably around the user's arm with a textured grip, ensuring a low-profile design that won't snag on clothing or gym equipment, allowing users to concentrate on their performance.