Health tech

Without machines, Zachary Thomason wouldn't live very long. The boy has been on a ventilator for all of his 12 years because he suffers from a rare muscle disorder that makes him extremely weak.

Until now, X-linked myotubular myopathy has prevented him from going to school regularly. But since the Paragould School District in Arkansas purchased a $5,000 VGo telepresence robot, chances are he'll become an avatar-style student soon.

Zach likes to play PlayStation, so he can remote-control the VGo, which is basically a Webcam on wheels. At 4 feet tall, it's designed to project the user's presence into a remote location with two-way audio and video, allowing for richer interaction than a phone call or stationary Webcam. … Read more

Claire Lomas suffered a T4 spinal injury in a 2007 horse riding accident that left her paralyzed from the chest down. In 2012, she completed the London Marathon. What happened in between was the development of a robotic suit that let her tackle the challenge on her own two legs.

It took 17 days for the 32-year-old resident of Leicestershire, England, to cross the finish line. Her motivation for the marathon was to raise funds for spinal cord injury research. So far, she has raised nearly $200,000.

The robotic ReWalk suit, one of several such devices, is made by Israeli company Argo Medical Technologies. It's a powered exoskeleton full of motion sensors, rechargeable batteries, and a computer system that allows the walker to control the suit.

ReWalk lets users stand, walk, and even climb and descend stairs. Crutches are used for stability (Lomas still has use of her arms). … Read more

The quest for the Fountain of Youth has never really gone away. On the more extreme end, we recently heard about FaceTime face-lifts. Those make CASS' Wear Repair line of anti-aging clothing sound somewhat reasonable.

Here's the premise. Wear Repair uses copper-infused fabric that claims to improve skin elasticity, reduce age spots, and give your skin a healthy glow. It is made from Cupron fabric that is 66 percent copper.

There are mentions on the CASS Web site of clinical trials of copper-enhanced fabrics. A little digging brought up a bibliography of studies on the biocidal effects of Cupron technology over at the Cupron site.… Read more

You might think you can't have a phone conversation with someone who's deaf, but Dimitri Kanevsky would not only disagree, he'd prove you wrong.

Deaf since he was 3, Kanevsky has hardly let his disability get in the way of progress -- or success. Born in the Soviet Union, he eventually emigrated, first to Israel, and then to the United States, and went on to become a research staff member in the speech and language algorithms department at IBM's Thomas Watson Research Center.

On Monday, Kanevsky and 13 others were honored at the White House in … Read more

Fitness technology is hot. Wearable technology is hot. It was just a matter of time before the two got together and had a love child. That baby is Move, a prototype technology garment that tracks your movements.

This isn't the first time we've checked out an imaginative tech fashion product from Jennifer Darmour of Electricfoxy. Her Zip jacket integrated a volume control into the zipper.

Built-in electronics in the tank top not only collect data with stretch-and-bend sensors, but also give a little physical nudge when your body position needs a correction. It's kind of like having somebody politely telling you not to slouch.… Read more

If you're in the United States and under 21 years of age, you really need to stop reading right now. In fact, I'm not sure I want anyone under 25 to know about this thing. Seriously, go look at some phone or video game reviews for a few minutes instead.

You're all still here aren't you?

Fine, then -- I tried. No, the headline doesn't lie. A French-American scientist named David Edwards has teamed up with French designer Philippe Starck -- who may or may not be behind some epic Apple product -- to create an aerosol spray that purports to make you "feel drunk" for a few seconds. … Read more

Cochlear implants, which help 220,000 deaf people around the world hear, come with a few unfortunate side effects.

Because the implants also consist of external parts (the mic, a speech processor, and a radio transmitter coil) worn rather conspicuously behind the ear, users are often unable to swim or wear helmets comfortably, must fully rely on a microphone exposed to the elements, and have to deal with appearing at least somewhat handicapped.

So an electrical engineer at the University of Utah has developed a prototype that moves all these external parts into the middle ear, allowing cochlear implants to … Read more

Samsung has applied for a patent on an implantable medical device that can communicate physiological/pathological information with an "external device."

At last, an app to tell us when we're stressed, drunk, or asleep (states that typically occur in that order, at least for me).

Samsung envisions much more than just a pacemaker you connect to. The application includes a number of possible scenarios with sci-fi implications such as a brain implant to keep track of brainwaves (but certainly not embed subliminal messages about the superior quality of Samsung devices) and fingertip implants for motion detection. … Read more

Random strangers can change your life. So can ear, nose, and throat specialists who trained as engineers at MIT.

This is something 52-year-old Jan Christian discovered when she was in a supermarket and someone heard her attempts to talk. The stranger suggested she visit Dr. Sid M. Khosla.

"I sure wish I could remember what she looked like and knew who she is," Christian told WXIX in Cincinnati.

Khosla studied engineering at MIT and when he came to the University of Cincinnati, he received a grant to study flow in the voice box. In another random occurrence that characterizes this extraordinary story, one of the finest experts in jet noise happened to be at the same university. … Read more