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Bionic Leg for the Commercial Market
Jay writes "I thought you may be interested in this crazy-cool fully powered bionic knee called the Power Knee. It's made by Victhom, a French-Canadian company and will be marketed by Ossur, an Icelandic prosthetics company and one of the biggest prosthetics companies in the world. You may have seen them in the news lately with their Rheo Knee or rheomagnetic computer controlled knee. This new Power Knee takes it to the next level with full active power. Supposedly it will allow people to walk up stairs and the like. Here's the link to Ossur's Power Knee website with photos and video, and to Victhom's website. Cool video, amazing device."
so is it just a replacement leg for someone who lost their leg? So it read your body's "mind" and does whatever you want?
So if you jump on landing it will bend a little so that it coushins the jump?
and if you run it mimics how your other leg moves so that your body can't tell if it is a real or fake leg?
While this looks promising for prosthetics, as the article says, I wonder if this has any implication for simple knee-replacement surgery? As someone whose family has a history of knee replacement surgeries, it sure would be nice if they could make an artificial knee that would last more than 15 years...
The article states the the prosthetic generates its own power, probably a kinetic power generator. How much power can such a device output, especially to run an embeded AI which determines the movement of the limb. Does the limb eventually run out of power (reducing it back to a normal prosthetic)? Such as, if the limb is not used for an extended period of time? The very design of it is ingenious though, and I would not doubt that they have made the system fully self-sufficient. Very cool.
"this is the gloaming"
radiohead
When will we start seeing bionics marketed towards those who want to be better than normal? Transhumanists.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
A feature that would be very useful, though I didn't see it mentioned anywhere on the site, would be the ability to "punish" the knee for making an error. Most learning algorithms work by having a teacher tell them what sort of actions/decisions were right or wrong. With this system, there is probably some sort of hardcoded teacher, which is not necessarily the best way to do things -the best judge of what you want your bionic leg to do is probably yourself, and not a programmer somewhere. For example, if your leg starts to give way as youre walking up stairs, forcing you to catch onto the rail to prevent serious injury, you should have the ability to say, basically "bad leg!". By pressing the appropriate button, you would teach the AI that it made a mistake, and it would modify itself as necessary. A similar system might be useful for telling the system when its doing a good job, perhaps a dial that simply represents the users satisfaction.
Is it by coincidence or by design that the name of the company that makes the replacement limbs is more or less a homonym for "victim"?
When I see "Victhom" I see it being pronounced "VIC-tum".
Shades of Grayden
Here is a direct link ot the video. It's WMV format.
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
Gentlemen, we can rebuild him... We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before... Stronger... Faster...
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
A relative of mine lost his leg in a train accident, while working for a railway company. Unsafe working conditions were the cause. He got screwed out of compensation, insurance doesn't cover much and he's been on disability pension. He's in his 50's now. He has the lowest tech leg there is (becuase its affordable) but he complains of the discomfort of it everyday.
It would be nice to see him get one of these new devices as a result. Its unfortunate that, particularly with these kinds of devices that only the "rich" can afford them. There should be a better system for everyone to benefit from. Its worse when it happens in the workplace and should have been a preventable incident.
Has I recall Steve Austin (6 Million Dollar Man) had two legs, an arm and that Eye, so this would make 1/4th of that. 1.5 Million?
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
That means my dream of having a bionic arm is not too far off!
I'd sell my leg for one of those.
If a company is located in Canada, it is then a Canadian company. Period.
High bandwidth (DSL): 500kb Low Bandwidth (56k): 4MB?
I, for one, welcome our new Icelandic cyborg overlords.
They just couldn't resist putting in those borg-esque blinking LEDs, now could they?
Does add to the cool factor, though.
Yes, 15 years is the lifetime that we're seeing, on average, but remember that these were put in 15 years ago! The plastics (ultra high molec weight, highly cross linked poly) are supposedly much better now, and should last longer than the 15 years.
Hips and knees are diferent - knees are currently limited to metal on plastic, whereas hips can come in a variety of composites. Recently, metal -metal hips, and ceramic hips have been making a go around - they are supposed to have 10 times less wear than the plastic-metal hips.
TO be honest 15 years is very good. Most people really dont need a total joint arthroplasty (artificial joint) until they are over 50 years of age. One revision surgery should last them until they are around 80 - which is currently a little higher than the average lifespan of most people.
Several factors have an effect on the lifetim of these artificial joints - younger, heavier people wear theirs out faster , than older lighter people. However, being overweight probably was a MAJOR contributing factor for the reason that many people need these in the first place.
..........FULL STOP.
"Ossur" means "fart" in turkish. "Fart" means "velocity" in swedish. I think I've made my case as to how this was named.
*clears throat*
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.
pics in TFA show a lot of metal...they won't be content to wand you and you'd probably have to travel in presentable underware and zip-off clothing 'cause you are getting an inspection when your leg looks like part of a small missle.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
This is great news. Now we can send thousands of maimed Iraq veterans back to the "front" ("Iraq"), tougher and madder than before. We might have pushed a draft back by at least a year - another whole year of Slashdotters who will be too old to go bionic, courtesy of Uncle Sam.
--
make install -not war
The doctor is the crazy one.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
Don't make me put my bionic foot up your bionic ass... :P