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Man Demonstrates His New Bionic Hand
digitaldc writes with this excerpt from the BBC:
"Last year, Patrick, a 24-year-old Austrian, decided to have his dysfunctional hand amputated and replaced with a bionic hand. He lost the use of his left hand after being electrocuted at work. Here he demonstrates the extra movement his new bionic hand has given him, opening a bottle and tying his shoelaces, and tests a prototype hand which will give him additional wrist movement."
Score +1 for George Lucas' foresight, further proof that 'The Empire Strikes Back' is the best move of all time...OF ALL TIME! ;)
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
"Electrocute" means "kill by electricity".
While I applaud the medical benefits of this research, I worry about the implications. If this becomes cost effective, insurance will strong arm people into replacement surgery instead of giving them a helping hand.
The summary (and later in the article):
He lost the use of his left hand after being electrocuted at work.
The article:
The patient, a Serbian national who has lived in Austria since childhood, suffered injuries to a leg and shoulder when he skidded off his motorcycle and smashed into a lamppost in 2001 while on holiday in Serbia.
Milo used a hybrid hand before deciding on the operation
While the leg healed, what is called a "brachial plexus" injury to his right shoulder left his right arm paralysed. Nerve tissue transplanted from his leg by Professor Aszmann restored movement to his arm but not to his hand.
I don't get it. Are they talking about two different people in the same article? They seem to be referencing the same person, but for some reason writing two articles on the same page about it.
I'm confused, I think.
Herr Doktor Merwerdichliebe, is that you!?!
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Reminds me of Deus Ex and Sarif Industries video that Edios just put out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWmeBeRb1RY&feature=player_embedded
To be fair, the prosthetic is kind of crap compared to a normally functioning human hand. Give it twenty years, though, and I'm sure there'll be quite a market for utility limbs.
What kind of WPM can he get with that thing?
but the next thing you know, he'll be fighting off fembots with bigfoot.
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Better, Stronger - Faster
Then what's the correct term for an electric shock that causes permanent but nonlethal damage to living tissue?
Did you watch the video? It's pretty damn impressive. Albeit, he might not be able to type or knit or something else involving complex motor movement. It has a "coooool" factor to it for sure.
As mentioned above:
The New Oxford American Dictionary defined "electrocute" as "to injure or kill by electricity."
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
No. He would have been a complete dumbass and suitably derided as such. Presently, upper limb prostheses can be replacements for lost or damaged limbs; they are not upgrades. Amputees can do quite well with their prostheses, and there are continual improvements coming along. But no one would claim that there's a prosthesis out there that matches, let alone exceeds, the human hand in more than one or two of a few dozen measures.
Then what's the correct term for an electric shock that causes permanent but nonlethal damage to living tissue?
Shocked really fucking badly.
Not quite as awesome as the augmentations in the latest Deus Ex installment, but we're getting pretty damn close.
~Syberz
That that sentence is worth saying at all really just says how far we've come.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
You'd have trouble finding a doctor to agree to that. The ones that would agree to it wouldn't be ones I'd trust to take a knife to me.
Electrocute. at least according to the noobs at oxford.
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Steve Austin really had the show stolen from him when Luke Skywalker showed up.
Can he use his new robotic hand to deploy and build mini-sentries?
I've got a fever and the only prescription is more COBOL.
Bionic hand - that is OK and could do many people a lot of good, but how long do we have until a bionic head gets installed? And what would s bionic head mean? For me - abandon ship, abandon ship...
Wow this guy would be the king of using screwdrivers. Lucky bastard.
Name's Ash. Housewares.
Practice on a hotdog first.
that's one of the great things to slashdotters about getting fitted with one of these, it'll be let getting a handjob *from someone else*. A living hand you have to make numb first!
This issue had come up before, and I was surprised that "electrocute" is supposed to mean killed by electricity, supposedly as a combination (sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm so fucking sorry, I mean portmanteau, how dare I use a perfectly functional English word when we have a French one) of "electric" and "execute" (even though it was being used in cases where victims weren't being executed, but whatever).
That had surprised me because I had always seen it used to mean any electric shock. Which would seem to give a common usage defense.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
I have had a thought in the back of my head ever since I had started hearing about these prostetic arms. :) :)
How long before someone will use it as a third upper limb? The brain should(?) be able to integrate this after some training.
You could attach it above the waist or somehow above your shoulder.
Imagine typing with 2 hands and speaking on the phone or puring your self a glass of water
Yes, I'd try one
If I'm thinking of this, I can't be the only one. Should be easier to try than implanting a web cam in the back of your head.
Curiously yours, crip.
I am happy for him and wish he could have had his own hand fully working. But as a minimun shouldn't you get the ability to crush metal in your bare hand as a side benefit. And I don't mean a coke can.
Where does Bionic end and Cyborg begin?
Good-bye
Definition of BIONIC 1 : of or relating to bionics 2 a : having normal biological capability or performance enhanced by or as if by electronic or electromechanical devices b : comprising or made up of artificial body parts that enhance or substitute for a natural biological capability "a bionic heart"
Some days later, he was treated for massive friction burns on his dick. "It was great until I started smelling smoke," he said.
From a section of the text article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13273348) addressing "Milo", the latest recipient of this type of operation (not the guy shown in the video article):
"But Professor Aszmann has faced opposition in some quarters, with senior colleagues even requesting he cancel this latest operation - requests the professor promptly rejected."
The Professor's reason for continuing seemed interesting for me - "Milorad is now 26 years old and he wants to go on with his life. To biologically reconstruct a hand for him would be a never-ending story and in the end he would still have a non-functional hand."
So, they could maybe have tried to fix his real hand but that would have resulted in a lower quality of life due to the process taking longer and having less certain results. The bionic replacement just speeds up the process of getting some functionality back vs trying to fix what's already there.
Just get a fleshlight attachment. Easy.
Harder.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
I think I just found his theme song :)
(Info: Romeo Knight's remix of Bionic Commando stage 1 music)
It's The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."
I live with Poland's Syndrome and (even though I love life and would hate to have something harder to deal with) I would love to be able to replace my non-functioning side with this.
Yes, I have a hand and arm, but I can't wait till the day when I can use it like everyone else.
I just hope they have all the connecting bits strong enough. Not having full use of that side of my body for so many years has to be compensated for in order to account for the extra strain.
I imagine that Austrian guy must be ecstatic to be able to open a bottle or tie his shoes again.
Cheers! I wish him only the best!
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
Before the first operation, the professor held a symposium to discuss the procedure, to which senior surgeons and a theologian were invited.
A theologian? What?
If one was the mechanical or handyman type it could have the screwdriver/nutdriver version :) Instead of flex and open/close it would do left/right and magnetize/demagnetize. Give em time and the hand should be removable while the sensors stay put making it easy. Even simpler: add an attachement for the middle finger :O
I probably should not suggest the impact wrench option around you folks tho ;p
how long ago was it they wanted to prevent a man with no legs running in the olympics because they thought he'd have an unfair advantage?
Yeah, because spring legs are really related to robot hands...
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsU1t2vkURg
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
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Yeah, it's funny, I'm a relative old-timer on /. and I recall probably just a bit over ten years ago having interesting discussions right here about the exciting 'future' possibilities of prosthetics, that 'one day we would be able to build functioning replacement hands' etc. We've really come full circle if the kids on /. now mundanely talk about how crap this or that prosthetic hand is. Not long ago this was the stuff of pure science fiction, stuff we dreamed about as kids, when I watched this video I was thinking about how amazing it really is that science fiction has become mundane reality, and how most people don't even think of this stuff as amazing anymore. On one "hand" it's good, on another something intangible feels lost.
Cause that sounds like a pretty cool hand. If he'd been, he could've gotten a pretty nifty nickname, like say... Cool Hand Luke?
Oh, right. You were probably going for the Star Wars reference.