Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
PossessedHand Borgs Your Hands To Teach You
The PossessedHand is a device that controls your hands using electronic stimuli. A forearm belt that applies selective stimuli to the muscles in the forearm can control 16 joints in the hand.
(PossessedHand diagram)
If a device can control human hands, the device can be useful for HCI and tangible application’s output. To aid the controlling of finger movement, we present PossessedHand, a device with a forearm belt that can teach when and which fingers should be moved. PossessedHand controls the user’s fingers by applying electrical stimulus to the muscles around the forearm. Each muscle is stimulated via 28 electrode pads. Muscles at different depths in the forearm can be selected for simulation by varying the stimulation level.PossessedHand can automatically calibrate the system for individuals. The automatic calibration system estimates relations between each electrode pad, stimulation level and muscle movement. Experiments show that PossessedHand can control the motion of 16 joints in the hand.
(PossessedHand forces borged hand to play koto)
This reminds me of a scene from Robert Heinlein's 1940 story Waldo, in which remotely teleoperated gloves are used to teach someone how to use their hands to control a lathe:
Jenkins thrust his arms into the waldoes and waited. Waldo put his arms into the primary pair before him; all three pairs, including the secondary pair mounted before the machine, came to life. Jenkins bit his lip, as if he found unpleasant the sensation of having his fingers manipulated by the gauntlets he wore.Waldo flexed and extended his fingers gently; the two pairs of waldoes in the screen followed in exact, simultaneous parallelism.
'Feel it, my dear Alec,' Waldo advised. 'Gently, gently - the sensitive touch. Make your muscles work for you.' He then started hand movements of definite pattern...
(Read more about Heinlein's Waldo)
I was also thinking of a scene from Robert Silverberg's The Man in the Maze in which humanoids are controlled like puppets for the use of their digital appendages; if you can control fine motions of living people, who needs robots?
From PossessedHand via NewScientist.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 7/1/2011)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 5 )
Related News Stories - (" Engineering ")
Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.' - Don Wilcox, 1939.
Centipede Robots Down On The Farm
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.' - Fritz Leiber, 1958.
Vipera Electric Skis From Frigid Dynamics
'JOAN strapped on her power-skis...' - Ursula K. Le Guin, 1964.
Pivotal Blackfly Electric Aircraft Lifts And Hovers
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair...' - RH Roman, 1929.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
Caterpillar Electric Mining Loader Not Yet Ready For Moon
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
Centipede Robots Down On The Farm
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
Anthropic's Claude AI Creates Legal Citation From Whole Cloth
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize
'About time you got here,' the astronaut said.
'They Erased My Memory' Says Ariana Grande
'...using a neutralizing electronic impulse.'
Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space
'...the Hole is something like a vortex or a whirlpool?'
Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
DARPA Wants 'Large Bio-Mechanical Space Structures'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
Robot Hand Creeps Along, Separate From It's Owner
'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...'
Korean Exoskeleton Suit F1 Helps You Put It On
'Better late than never.'
Have AI Researchers Given Up On 'Bio-Babies'?
'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
Bunker Busters and Bore-Pellets
'The first revelation of the new Soviet bore-pellets.'
'Spikeless' Brand Swizzle Stick Detects Spiked Drinks
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
