FDA Approves Segway Inventor's Mind-Controlled Robotic Arm

The era of real cyborgs has begun. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave its first approval for the sale and marketing of a prosthetic arm that translates signals from a person’s muscles on Friday.

Informally known as the "Luke" arm (a reference to Luke Skywalker's robotic arm in Star Wars), the Deka Arm, which is controlled by electrical signals from electromyogram (EMG) electrodes connected to the wearer's muscles, can now move from research experiment to full-fledged commercial product. That's right, bionic limbs are about to go mainstream

" The Deka Arm System may allow some people to perform more complex tasks than they can with current prostheses in a way that more closely resembles the natural motion of the arm," said Christy Foreman, the director of the Office of Device Evaluation at the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health in a statement.

In a demonstration video (see above) released on Friday, Fred Downs, one of the recipients of the Deka Arm, is shown using the prosthetic hand to delicately pick up and move a carton of eggs. Like the device's nickname, the demonstration is indeed reminiscent of the dexterity exhibited by Luke Skywalker's robotic hand, a technology that was pure science fiction just a few decades ago, when the movie was first released.

The Deka Arm's electrodes, which are attached to the muscles of the wearer, transmit signals to a processor in the prosthesis, which then interprets those signals and turns them into up to 10 distinct movements.

In yet another video (see above), Downs is shown using the Deka Arm to open up a piece of mail, a seemingly simple demonstration that is nevertheless indicative of the device's precision.

And while the project was sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Army Research Office, Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway, and his team at Deka Research were instrumental in its development, hence the name.


IMAGE: DARPA

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Robot TED Talk Will Make You Believe in Magic

Magician's assistants may soon be out of work. Robots are not only ready to take their place, but they're doing it live and on a TED stage.

After months of development, training and practice, self-styled "techno illusionist" Marco Tempest took a Baxter robot, renamed him EDI (pronounced "Eddie") and put him on stage doing magic tricks at the recent TED2014 conference in Vancouver.

Tempest's six-minute TED talk, seen below, is a testament to what's possible with modern robots. As he told, "It’s time for magicians and technologists to collaborate.”

Tempest, whose previous magic-infused TED talk used augmented reality and iPads, started his new project last year, shortly after Rethink Robotics introduced its roughly $30,000 Baxter robot. Although it's designed to work in a factory setting, Baxter is unusual: It plugs into a standard wall outlet, and can be trained to do simple repetitive tasks in a half an hour.

For his TED talk, however, Tempest had something else in mind. He wanted a performance, not "creepy" repetitive tasks. Over a period of eight months, Tempest reprogrammed Baxter to work with him, adding 3D-printed hands that would help its performance, a jaunty hat and a new digital face to make the robot look "goofier."

When we checked in with Tempest last year, the project looked promising, but there was still a lot of work left to do (see the video, below). The performance he and EDI (Electronic Deceptive Intelligence) gave in Vancouver, however, is flawless and rather astounding. Notice that Tempest interacts directly with EDI, and despite the robot's impressive arm span and occasionally rapid movements, they never collide.

As the video shows, the talk is roughly 70% robotics education and 30% magic performance. Once we're all up to speed on the power and promise of robotics, perhaps we'll see even more magic out of EDI and Tempest.

VIDEO: Marco Tempest

IMAGE:  TED CONFERENCE, JAMES DUNCAN DAVIDSON

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These Musical Drones Are More Talented Than Justin Bieber

Even the most skilled guitar god has nothing on these drones.

KMel Robotics created a swarm of flying hexrotors to play some sweet music. The perfectly synchronized robots float through the air to bang on drums and pluck strings to create famous classical compositions.

The band of drones perform three songs, beginning with Strauss' "Also sprach Zarathustra," leading into "Carol of the Bells" and finishing with a rendition of "Star Spangled Banner" that even Jimi Hendrix would approve of.

The musical machines will be rocking out live at the USA Science & Engineering Festival April 26-27 in Washington, D.C. After that, perhaps these drones should take their act on the road opening for Kesha.

VIDEO: YOUTUBE, THEDMEL

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Tim Cook Narrates Apple Ad on Saving the Planet

It's extremely rare for an Apple CEO to narrate one of the company's commercials personally. Steve Jobs did it once for the famous "Here's to the Crazy Ones" ad as part of the company's "Think Different" campaign in 1997, but the Jobs version never made it to air.

That means Tim Cook became the first leader of the world's most valuable technology company to put his voice into an actual ad campaign on Monday, when Apple released a 90-second film called "Better" (watch above). The ad focuses on everything the Cupertino giant is doing to reduce its carbon footprint, from using less packaging to recycling its products to building data centers powered entirely by solar energy.

"To us, 'better' is a force of nature," Cook says in the ad. "Now, more than ever, we will work to leave the world better than we found it." His point is reinforced with beautiful imagery of a solar panel array, and various shots of trees interwoven with Apple products under construction.

It would be easy to dismiss the ad as greenwashing — it's a little too slick in its visuals — but it turns out Cook actually has a lot to crow about when it comes to the environment. Last month's Greenpeace report on the technology sector, "Clicking Clean" [PDF], singled out Apple for "significant improvements in their energy transparency" and called it "the most improved company" in the annual report.

Cook has publicly committed Apple to using 100% renewable energy in all of its facilities as soon as possible. More than three quarters of its buildings use renewable energy already, up from one quarter under Jobs. The company hired the former head of the EPA, Lisa Jackson, to oversee its sustainability efforts in 2013. It has also committed itself to using green materials in its computers under the EPEAT standard.

The company made a large-scale investment in a solar array outside its North Carolina data center in 2012, pressured the state utility Duke Energy to offer electricity from renewable sources to all corporate customers, and recently announced it would use geothermal power for its new Reno data center. "Apple has done the most of any data center operator to make its part of the internet green," Greenpeace spokesman and report co-author David Pomerantz said.

The CEO made his passion on the subject of climate change clear in February during the company's annual shareholder meeting.

Cook was faced with with repeated questions from a conservative think tank that is skeptical of mainstream climate science findings. The group wanted to know why he would voluntarily go further than EPA standards and whether environmentalism was good for profits. In response, Cook got briefly and uncharacteristically angry.

"When I think about making our products accessible for the people that can’t see or to help a kid with autism, I don’t think about a bloody ROI," the CEO said. "By the same token, I don’t think about helping our environment from an ROI point of view."

So there's good reason to think that Cook is as genuine as Jobs was in his ad narration; reportedly, the Apple cofounder choked up while recording the "Here's to the Crazy Ones" ad (which you can watch below). What remains to be seen is whether an ad like "Better" brings in any more customers — or whether technology users who care about the environment are all using Apple products anyway.

Of course, it's entirely possible that Cook doesn't care about getting a "bloody ROI" on this ad. We've reached out to Apple to find out more about the campaign.

IMAGE: APPLE

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Drone Shoots Epic Footage of SpaceX Rocket Launch and Controlled Landing

Elon Musk's space-faring company SpaceX has released the first test footage of its Falcon 9 Reusable (F9R) taking off, and making a controlled landing at the company's rocket-development facility in Texas.

The epic video gives us a 360-degree aerial view of the feat, thanks to the unique perspective of a camera-equipped drone.

The video, above, opens with the hexacopter drone already airborne, and swooping in to get a close-up view of the rocket as it begins to take off. After reaching a height of 250 meters (about 820 feet), the rocket hovers and then returns to earth.

The importance of the successful test was highlighted by the fact that Musk interrupted his Twitter stream of updates on the Friday SpaceX launch bound for the International Space Station to direct everyone's attention to the test footage.

The SpaceX controlled-descent tests are designed to aid the company in its efforts to make reusable rockets the norm, and therefore significantly bring down the cost of future space travel.

VIDEO: YouTube SPACEX

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A 3D Printer Could Be Your Future Tattoo Artist

Ink junkies, take note— a machine could create your future tattoos.

Three French design students modified a MakerBot 3D printer to administer tattoos. One lucky volunteer is now the proud bearer of the world's first 3D-printed tattoo — a perfect circle on his forearm.

Pierre Emm, Piotr Widelka and Johan Da Silveira modified the printer as part of a challenge from France's Cultural Ministry and hosted through design school ENSCI Les Ateliers. For the challenge, the students had eight hours to create a project that remixes images, videos and sounds found in the public domain.

Though the original project used only a pen to create a temporary tattoo, the students worked in their spare time to create a printer that would create permanent tattoos.

The trio tested their machine using artificial skin before finding a volunteer and using a Scooter inner tube to the hold the skin taut.

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Flying Beer Drone Is Intoxicating, FAA Delivers Immediate Hangover

Although Amazon's drone delivery system isn't expected to launch until 2015, one enterprising businessman is trying to speed up the program's debut by offering something that might inspire a bit more urgency: beer.

Jack Supple, president of Lakemaid Beer, unveiled the idea last week on YouTube, showing off exactly how easy it could be for fishermen on Minnesota’s Mille Lacs Lake to get a frosty brew via flying robot.

Set to dreamy music, the video spot begins with a store clerk receiving a delivery order and writing down coordinates. Soon after, the clerk attaches a 12-pack of beer to a drone, which then flies off and successfully delivers the goods to a snow-covered fishing shack.

During initial testing of Lakemaid’s drone-delivery system, its robot failed to pick up a fully stocked 12-pack of beer. But after removing two bottles, bringing the overall weight down to 15 pounds and nine ounces, the drone was able to successfully take off, and land with its alcoholic cargo intact.

"We figured that we were smarter [delivering] on frozen lakes rather than in big cities like Amazon," Supple said in a recent television interview.

But don’t get too excited. It turns out that the Federal Aviation Administration has already grounded Lakemaid’s ambitious plans. The FAA contacted the company, and instructed it to stop the flights because they were deemed a commercial enterprise, according to Supple.

Supple added that the FAA also referenced a comprehensive document entitled "Integration of Civil Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in the National Airspace System (NAS) Roadmap," which outlines the current restrictions on commercial drones.

In the document, the FAA says:

"For a person wishing to design, manufacture, market, or operate a UAS for a commercial mission and seeking FAA approval for that aircraft, its pilot and the operations, existing rules have not been fully tailored to the unique features of UAS."

New rules that will be in place by 2015 could allow for some commercial uses of drones in the U.S., according to document. But until the law catches up with current technology, you’ll still have to hop in a car or walk yourself over to the nearest beer store to get your fix.

VIDEO: YOUTUBE, LAKEMAID BEER

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Google Street View Car Races Mercedes Supercar

Google Street View Car isn't exactly built for speed. It's better for slow, steady neighborhood rides while collecting 360-degree imagery of its surroundings (and, sometimes, Wi-Fi data). So, how would it fare against a Mercedes Benz SLS AMG Black Series with 631 horsepower and a top speed of 196 miles per hour?

Simply put, it wouldn't. The Mercedes leaves it in a cloud of smoke and burned tire fragments. The feature is, in part, thanks to Top Gear, which brought the Google Street View Car to its test track to take the imagery and place it on Google Maps. To spice things up, showrunners pitted the car against the extremely expensive Mercedes supercar for a virtual "race."

To find it, type "Top Gear Test Track" into Google Maps and drag Google's yellow pegman, located in the upper left corner of Maps, onto the map.

You can virtually stroll around the test track with the Mercedes, which is driven by Top Gear's infamous Stig. We can call this a 1:1 — the Mercedes may be faster, but the Street View Car takes nicer photos.

Image: YOUTUBE/TOPGEAR

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