Touch Bionics has been at this bionic prosthetics business for a while now, already providing i-Limb solutions to those deprived of the use of their
hands or
arms. The company's latest innovation is to reduce all that tech down to the level of individual fingers, with its freshly announced ProDigits being able to replace anywhere between one and all of your precious little piggies. Relying on a traditional
myoelectric regime -- which reacts to muscle signals from the residual hand -- or pressure from the remnant finger for its input, this invention can even be tweaked by doctors (over Bluetooth) to adjust the finer motor functions on a per patient basis. Costing up to £40,000 ($65,000), these new prosthetics will be custom-built for each person, and there are plans to apply to have them made available through national health insurance -- in countries that are into that sort of thing. Video after the break.
posted December 8th 2009 9:09PM
So let me get this straight....you are trying to do the world some good by providing an amazing product to make those that are unfortunate...fortunate again...and your costing them an arm and a leg (no pun intended) to get it?
@EzB
There's no way that wasn't intentional.
@EzB "national health insurance" remind me again america, why is this a bad idea?
@EzB the money to make the things have to come from somewhere.. its not like these are made out of cheap materials..
@azra3l
You don't look to far into the future do you?
Free health care has it's cons- many of them. Just do some research, I'm not going to describe them here, because it's inappropriate.
@Special Agent Steve dude, i live in the UK, we have had free healthcare for over 60 years (ish) trust me, its NOT a bad thing. quite a few of my friends would be dead without it, and weirdly, none of them have been bankrupted by insurance companies refusing to pay out..
so.. how is nationalised healthcare a bad thing?
btw, you wont get a reply to this until the morning, its 230am here.
@Special Agent Steve or because you don't know them
@azra3l oh, and try and come up with a retort that doesn't use the words "socialism" or "why should i pay for other people" in your reply. thank you.
@EzB
First, the components alone on these things may be incredibly pricey. Second, these are custom built for each person. Third, that's how new technology works. If it isn't a great and novel advance, then no one will pay it anyway. If you think that some nigh-criminal profit is being made at that cost, then go ahead and invent and market your own better solution for cheaper.
This is putting a price on improving someone's quality of life, unlike with drug companies that put a price on life itself for many people. Universal health care debates can go elsewhere.
@(Unverified)
Right. Yeah, I'm just completely fucking with you.
You like to get in fights on the internet to prove your point, like 90% of everyone else. I don't give a fuck. I'm not posting them.
@Special Agent Steve
Cons: Smokers.
@EzB
Ya know, am with you 100%. The US government should be the first to be investing billions on this for the vets that lost limbs during the war. But yet they don't. Instead they give AIG half a billion so that AIG can pay their executives their million dollar bonuses.
The problem with this world is that if someone is not making money out of it; you will never see it. Thats why we will never be a Level 3 civilization.
@EzB $65K really isn't that expensive to replace the functions of missing digits. Especially if it can be partially covered by insurance or a national health plan.
Looks like there is hope for us against Skynet now. I'm gonna go get all my limbs replaced with these.
I'll be back.
@Eternity only in a re-run
@azra3l
Maybe...if Sarah Connor finally lets me into her sacred garden?
I hope I can impress her with my solid, shiny new....umm... parts.
Arm wife here I come.
My HMO would cover that.
No one's HMO, PPO, or national health care plan is going to cover that. There are 61,000 finger amputees in the US, and assuming a median cost of $50,000/unit, that would be a one time cost of 3 billion dollars, not to mention the maintenance network you would have to have to maintain that many devices.
@Brad Green um.. actually, the NHS probably would pay for it. i used to work in an operating theatre in UCLH london, we regularly put prosthetics costing 10's of thousands of pounds into patients with a life expectancy of only a few years (you would be amazed how much a custom hip implant costs) in this country its not about making a profit, its about the good of the patients.
@Brad Green
Not true. My legs cost about £2000 each, and they are pretty much the most basic type. They need to be replaced every few years too.
I'm a below the knee amputee, so no complex knee joints, no powered joints. I have seen some specialist legs made at the place where I get mine done for anything from neutral buoyancy swimming legs with angled ankles to a couple of soldiers who got a pair of clip on legs so they could still do parachute jumps. All free under the NHS system. And I know they supply computerised knees that sense when they need to bend.
The hand clinic is in a different area, So I don't know much about the range they offer. And hands are obviously much more complex prosthetics. So more expensive.
Free health care.. who needs it eh?
Kids programming a war veterans arm to kill over bluetooth...priceless...
Fringe did it already. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/sciencenotfiction/files/2009/05/fringe-hand-web.jpg
This is great and all, but droids constantly wanting to prick your artificial fingers with pins is bound to get annoying.
perhaps i'm the only one but i found the way this article was written ("precious little piggies") sort of unsettling considering the subject matter
@Uncontrol
Yeah I agree. I am paralyzed from the chest down and I can tell you first hand how "precious" your limbs really are.
The problem with prosthetics is not the functionality/range-of-motion of the prothesis itself, but the way its is controlled by the host. Right now, we still rely on very primitive ways to control these things. Hold your applause until they actually figure out a way to tie the actual nerves responsible for the missing limb's function into the prothesis (which they are starting to do in prototype) so that they are controlled just like one would control the missing part.
"Pro" is Latin for "in place of", which might explain the naming.
@DestrictoEnse You mean like a "pro"noun [|:^{o)
Not to be rude, but WTF is up with that guys head?
@Cheesus Crust
its also prosthetic. lol
@Cheesus Crust
Christ, that name is Cheesy
I am missing my right index, not entirely, but I don't have the two joints in the middle, so I can only move the finger from the joint that attaches the finger to the hand. I had an accident when I was 5 years old, but I learned to live with it. I can type pretty fast and can do pretty much everything.
Anyways, I think a (robotic) finger would be pretty hard to use, I still prefer to wait for a more organic solution, like something that can actually grow to become a real finger, not some robotic/plastic thing that I need to remove when I shower or whatever...
Anyways, I am only 22 years old, hopefully by the next 10 years or so the world of medicine will be advanced enough to make a completely natural replacement.
@MSM There isn't anything comeing inthe next 5 to 10 years with biological replacements but there ara body powered ones on the horizon which would suit your needs
I wonder if they can actually type on a keyboard in the normal fashion. Also, I wonder if they can use game consoles, assuming they have their thumbs.
The pro digits have been around for the last 3+ years and are exactly the same tech used in the iLimb, so hardly new. This system will be using standard myo control so placement and movement ofthe digits will be slow at best and only activation of all digits as one unit is possible.
I would hate for this to malfunction while I'm taking a piss.
@daytripper
+1 on comment lol
@daytripper - wow, i was amused and frightened by that thought at the same time lol
I wish they would make something like this to control legs after someone has been paralyzed. I was paralyzed from the chest down in 2005 after I tripped with a gun. You never know how much you would miss it untill you can't walk anymore. Here's to hoping it will happen one day.
@Ezye1313 This device relies on muscle pressure from the part of the hand that wasn't amputated. I don't actually know for sure (i'm not a doctor) but I doubt a paralyzed limb has that pressure. Maybe they could do something like the segway though. The segway uses gyroscopic sensors to detect someone tilting forward or backwards and then turns the wheels to adjust. Maybe you could put gyroscopic sensors on the torso and have it move the legs to compensate? They could just model the leg movement after normal leg movement. I guess it would have to be switched off for things like sitting down (and sleeping though) but maybe you could have a control box in your pocket or something. idk... I'm sure one day they'll have something like that. A black swan, I believe, is what they call things like that.
@Ezye1313
Well - they can put electrodes on / in your muscles which would allow them to use a computer interface to control each muscle - and in turn move your legs. They're doing some great research right now on brain input through sensors - you can imagine if they can attach those two you could bypass your (assumedly) severed spinal cord and have your brain control your legs again. Of course this is a way off right now, and they may figure out how to use iPS cells (topic of my research) or neural progenitors to repair the spinal damage before then. Nerves send electrical signals - and we're getting pretty darn good with electronics. I Imagine a spinal bypass / repair will be available within 25 years. Also - I am sorry for your loss of mobility. I hope to be involved with the Medical Device industry once I graduate :)
Does anybody else hear in their head the Million Dollar Man noise when the arm moves? That springy noise which was awesome.
(bionic) FAP, FAP, FAP. call it the Touch Pro 2.
SUPER STRENGTH HERE I COME!
The only issue with this will be the annoying sound as you use it
http://www.soundboard.com/sb/playerskins/singleTrackPlayer3.swf?&txtColor=0xffffff&trackURL=http://www.soundboard.com/mediafiles/NjM0NjEyMDIyNjM0NjYx_7JrrplEJVLQ.mp3&vol=70&action=start&title=Bionic%20sound%201
Automail?
"countries that are into that sort of thing"
You mean, almost every other country in the world?
@ibopm No, just very very few rich developed countries 'who are into that sort of thing'. Every other country does not have millions ( forget billions ) of dollars to spend on prosthetic limbs. In fact, in most of these countries, people routinely die because they don't have access to basic healthcare.
I look forward to the wood+springs NHS version