From far away, ‘Moon,’ a project by Ai Weiwei and Olafur Eliasson, looks just like you’d expect it to—round and pale with a few craters here and there. Zoom in and you’ll quickly find that the craters are individual pieces of art and words working together to create a moon-like landscape from a distance. As in the previously-seen “Epic Exquisite Corpse,” the interactive project is an exercise in what we’ll call ‘crowdsketching.’ The experience begins with a word from the artists:
“Turn nothing into something—make a drawing, make a mark. Connect with others through this space of imagination. Look at other people’s drawings and share them with the world. Be part of the growing community to celebrate how creative expression transcends external borders and internal constraints. We are in this world together.
Exit Guide is an evacuation system linked to the building’s fire alarm system. When the alarms go off, the green and red lights on the evacuation door light up, indicating which direction (or floor) you need to move to. For example, if the lower part of the escape door is red and the upper part is green, it simply means you need to go to the floors above you and there is danger below. The aim is to reduce panic and avoid confusion, so the speed of evacuation can be maximized.
– Yanko Design Timeless Designs – Explore wonderful concepts from around the world! Shop CKIE – We are more than just concepts. See what’s hot at the CKIE store by Yanko Design! (Right Direction was originally posted on Yanko Design)
News: Microsoft Kinect users can now scan themselves with the motion capture device and order a 3D-printed miniature model of themselves without leaving the house.
Developed by 3D scanning company Artec Group, Shapify.me offers a printing and delivery service for “3D Mini Me” figurines.
To create the tiny model, users can download an app to their computer and pair the machine with their Kinect device.
The Kinect must be positioned at chest height on the edge of a surface. The subject stands in front of the device, just over a metre away.
After striking the desired pose, the individual scans themselves and then turns 45 degrees before scanning again. This is repeated until a full rotation has been made and the same pose has to be held throughout.
The scan is calculated and appears on the screen so it can be viewed from various angles to check if it’s okay.
By pressing the 3D print button, the model one twentieth of the real height is ordered and delivered in the post in a matter of days. Figures can be ordered with or without a white stand.
The system is currently compatible with Microsoft Kinect for either Xbox 360 or Windows.
Bacteria from personalities including artist Olafur Eliasson, curator Hans Ulrich Obrist and chef Michael Pollan have been used to make human cheese as part of an exhibition about synthetic biology in Dublin.
Cheese made from chef Michael Pollan’s belly button bacteria
American scientist Christina Agapakis and Norwegian scent expert Sissel Tolaas collected bacteria from Obrist’s nose, Eliasson’s tears and Pollan’s belly button and used them to make the artisanal dairy products.
“We are presenting a set of cheeses made using bacteria from the human body,” Agapakis told Dezeen. “Everybody has a unique and diverse set of bacteria living on their skin that can be amplified using techniques from microbiology and grown directly in milk to form and flavour each cheese.”
The project, called Selfmade, features eleven cheeses in total, made from bacterial cultures harvested from the skin of artists, scientists, anthropologists, and cheese makers using sterile cotton swabs that were sent to the donors.
Cheese made of microbes from cheesemaker Seana Doughty’s mouth.
The cheeses each smell, and taste, of the body odour of the donor, Agapakis said.
“It’s no surprise that sometimes cheese odours and body odours are similar,” she explained. “But when we started working together we were surprised by how not only do cheese and smelly body parts like feet share similar odour molecules but also have similar microbial populations.”
Cheese made from microbiologist Ben Wolfe’s toe microbes
The project aims to demonstrate how living organisms that exist in the body also exist in food, and vice versa, and how microbiology can be used to harness and manipulate such organisms to create synthetic microbes with enhanced properties.
Cheese made from food writer Michael Pollan’s belly button bacteria
“Despite [their] chemical and biological similarities, there are obviously very different cultural and emotional responses to stinky cheese and stinky feet,” said Agapakis. “By making cheese directly from the microbes on the body, we want to highlight these bacterial connections as well as to question and potentially expand the role of both odours and microbes in our lives.”
“Nobody will eat these cheeses, but we hope that the cheese can inspire new conversations about our relationship to the body and to our bacteria.”
Cheese made from microbiologist Ben Wolfe’s toe microbes
Cheese made from food writer Michael Pollan’s belly button bacteria
In their artistic statement about the project, Agapakis and Tolaas say they hope to draw attention to the importance and potential of bacteria and to overcome a cultural fear of micro-organisms.
Cheese made of microbes from cheesemaker Seana Doughty’s mouth.
“Can knowledge and tolerance of bacterial cultures in our food improve tolerance of the bacteria on our bodies?” they write. “How do humans cultivate and value bacterial cultures on cheeses and fermented foods? How will synthetic biology change with a better understanding of how species of bacteria work together in nature as opposed to the pure cultures of the lab?”
Cheese made from microbiologist Ben Wolfe’s toe microbes
Grow Your Own – Life After Nature is at the Science Gallery in Dublin until 19 January 2014.
Here’s some more info from Agapakis and Tolaas:
Selfmade
The growing awareness of human microbial ecology and its influence on health is leading to wider understanding of the body as a superorganism; a collection of human and microbial cells that interact in numerous and unexpected ways. In this paradigm, notions of self and other, and of health and disease, are shifting to accommodate more ecological concepts of diversity and symbiosis.
Selfmade is a series of ‘microbial sketches’, portraits reflecting an individual’s microbial landscape in a unique cheese. Each cheese is crafted from starter cultures sampled from the skin of a different person. Isolated microbial strains were identified and characterised using microbiological techniques and 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing. Like the human body, each cheese has a unique set of microbes that metabolically shape a unique odour.
Cheese odours were sampled and characterised using headspace gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis, a technique used to identify and/or quantify volatile organic compounds present in a sample. A short film documenting the process of cheesemaking, along with interviews of the bacterial donors accompanies the cheese display and the data from microbiological and odour analysis. Visitors to the gallery are exposed to the diversity of life in their food and bodies, and a diversity of visions for future synthetic biologies.
Refrigerated cheeses
This project explores possibilities for a relational synthetic biology through the practices of cheesemaking. Cheesemaking involves a complex coordination of microbial life, promoting the growth of beneficial Lactobacillus strains that protect milk from more dangerous spoilage and the ecologies of microbes on the rind that create the prized flavours of different cheese varieties.
Those involved with synthetic biology are intent on transforming microbes into the useful machines of a new bioeconomy. In the short term, this is accomplished by isolating engineered strains and limiting microbial interactions in stainless steel reactors. However, the appeal of potential medium-term applications in the production of foods, environmental biosensors, or ‘smart’ living therapeutics demonstrates the power of thinking beyond the bioreactor.
Such approaches require addressing ecological concerns about the safety and complexity of interactions with other organisms, highlighting the need for a more relational synthetic biology. Understanding the biological networks inside cells as well as the networks of organisms, regulatory systems, economic structures, and cultural practices that shape the life of an engineered organism in the world will be crucial to the development of synthetic biologies in the long term.
Artist’s Statement
We not only live in a biological world surrounded by rich communities of microorganisms, but in a cultural world that emphasises total antisepsis. The intersection of our interests in smell and microbial communities led us to focus on cheese as a ‘model organism’. Many of the stinkiest cheeses are hosts to species of bacteria closely related to the bacteria responsible for the characteristic smells of human armpits or feet.
Can knowledge and tolerance of bacterial cultures in our food improve tolerance of the bacteria on our bodies? How do humans cultivate and value bacterial cultures on cheeses and fermented foods? How will synthetic biology change with a better understanding of how species of bacteria work together in nature as opposed to the pure cultures of the lab?”
Technology will increasingly be integrated into the body “to extend our abilities, our knowledge and our perceptions of reality”, according to Neil Harbisson, the first officially recognised human cyborg (+ interview).
Photograph by Dan Wilton
“We will stop using technology as a tool and we’ll start using technology as part of the body,” said Barcelona-based Harbisson, who wears a head-mounted antenna attached to a chip at the back of his skull that allows him to perceive colours. “I think this will be much more common in the next few years.”
Harbisson wears the “eyeborg” headset to overcome a visual impairment called achromatopsia, which means he sees the world in shades of grey. The eyeborg turns colours into sounds, allowing him to “hear” them and meaning he qualifies as a cyborg, or cybernetic organism – a living being with both natural and artificial parts.
“Feeling like a cyborg was a gradual process,” he said. “First, I felt that the eyeborg was giving me information, afterwards I felt it was giving me perception, and after a while it gave me feelings. It was when I started to feel colour and started to dream in colour that I felt the extension was part of my organism.”
Photograph by Dan Wilton
“The sounds are transmitted through my bone to my inner ear, which allows me to interpret what colours are according to the different sign waves of each sound.”
Harbisson charges his eyeborg via a USB power cable that attaches to the back of his head. “The aim [in future] is not to use electricity but to start finding ways of charging the chip [in my head] with my own body energy,” he explains. “I might be using blood circulation or my kinetic energy, or maybe the energy of my brain could charge the chip in the future.”
“Instead of using technology or wearing technology constantly, we will start becoming technology,” Harbisson told Dezeen. “It’s a very exciting moment in history that allows us to perceive reality in a greater way.”
Prototype eyeborg. Photograph by Dan Wilton
After a long battle with the UK authorities, Harbisson’s passport now carries a photo of him wearing his eyeborg, making him the world’s first government-recognised cyborg.
In 2010, Harbisson founded the Cyborg Foundation – an organisation whose mission statement is to “help humans become cyborgs, to promote the use of cybernetics as part of the human body and to defend cyborg rights [whilst] encouraging people to create their own sensory extensions”.
Harbisson believes that recent technological advances mean there will be a rapid growth in the number of people with cybernetic implants that give them enhanced abilities. This in turn will change what it means to be human.
“Our instincts and our bodies will change,” he said. “When you incorporate technology into the body, the body will need to change to accommodate; it modifies and adapts to new inputs. How we adapt to this change will be very interesting.”
Neil charging himself up with electricity. Photograph by Dan Wilton
However, Harbisson is sceptical of Cannon’s cyborg credentials. “Tim is a very different user of technology because I’m not sure if he’s extending senses of perception,” said Harbisson. Cannon’s device allows him to know the temperature of his body, whereas “the projects that the Cyborg Foundation is interested in extend senses and perception.”
Harbisson has created a series of artworks using his eyeborg, creating sound portraits by scanning people’s faces for different hues and turning the tones into short musical compositions.
The device also allows him to “listen” to architectural structures. The work of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí is his favourite: “All of the spaces in his buildings have very interesting spaces that are just musical,” he says.
Photograph by Moon Ribas
Here is a full transcript of the interview:
Ross Bryant: Firstly could you introduce yourself and tell us what you do.
Neil Harbisson: I’m an artist that wears an eyeborg, which allows me to perceive colour. I do colour concerts where I connect my eye to loudspeakers and I create sound portraits from looking at people’s faces. I also do exhibitions where I exhibit the colours of music or the colours of sound. I transpose music into paintings as well as working with the Cyborg Foundation in Barcelona. We start projects relating to extending other people’s senses by applying technology to the body.
Ross Bryant: Can you describe how you can hear colour?
Neil Harbisson: I have an antenna attached to my head that receives the light frequencies of the colours in front of me. These senses are connected to a chip in the back of my head that transposes light frequencies to sound frequencies. I see colours through a method of bone conduction.
Ross Bryant: You can do this because of the eyeborg. Can you briefly describe why you began the process of developing the eyeborg as well as beginning the process of becoming a cyborg?
Neil Harbisson: I was born completely colour-blind, so from a child I wanted to perceive colour. Then when I met Adam Montandon ten years ago, I realised that technology could be used to expand senses. I asked him if he could start a project to extend my senses and we began with this project. The first prototype was based on software, a five-kilo computer and a pair of headphones. We tried to find other people to make the extension smaller and more user-friendly and now it’s in in this form of a chip and a sensor.
Ross Bryant: Before the creation of the Eyeborg, how did not being able to perceive colour affect you personally?
Neil Harbisson: Not seeing colour didn’t make me feel disabled, it made me feel socially excluded. This alienation made me hate colour’s existence, but I came to realise that I couldn’t ignore colour forever – even if I couldn’t see it.
Ross Bryant: How do you charge the Eyeborg up? Do you connect it wirelessly or do you have to connect yourself up?
Neil Harbisson: I have like a USB-like connector that I put at the back of the head which allows me to plug myself in to the mains. I take three hours to charge myself and then I can go usually three or four days, but the aim is not to use electricity. One of the next stages is to find a way of charging the chip with my own body energy, so I might be using blood circulation or my kinetic energy – or maybe the energy of my brain could charge the chip in the future. That’s one of the next things; to be able to charge the chip without depending on any external energy.
Ross Bryant: How does the eyeborg communicate the sound of colour to you?
Neil Harbisson: Each colour has a specific frequency that I can hear because of the Eyeborg. Infrared is the lowest sound and ultraviolet is the highest sound. I hear them through bone conduction. Basically, the sound goes to the back of the head and then my inner ear hears the different sign waves.
Ross Bryant: You can perceive ultraviolet light and infrared? Are these upgraded functionalities to the Eyeborg?
Neil Harbisson: Before it was all about upgrading the software, now we just upgrade the chip. We continue extending and upgrading the cybernetics and that’s the good thing about cybernetics – you can keep upgrading the senses and perceiving more and more the longer you use it I guess. There’s no end. So, I can now perceive near infrared and near ultraviolet, but the next stage is to perceive them from afar and just continue to extend this to be able to hear colours underwater and also in space.
Ross Bryant: Have you heard of Tim Cannon and the DIY cyborg? What are your thoughts?
Neil Harbisson: He is a very different user of technology because I’m not sure if he’s extending senses of perception. Tim’s device just allows him to know the temperature of his body, which is just giving him information. The projects that we’re interested in at the Cyborg Foundation are those that extend senses and perception, not just the extension of information or abilities.
Ross Bryant: How do you think our relationship with technology is changing and what are your predictions for the future of cybernetics?
Neil Harbisson: I think the biggest change during this century will be that we will stop using technology as a tool and start using technology as part of the body. One way might be to extend our abilities or our knowledge, and other ways of using it would be to enhance our senses and perception of reality. I think this will be much more common in the next few years. Instead of using technology or wearing technology constantly, we will start becoming technology.
It’s a very exciting moment in history – to perceive reality in a greater way. Our instincts and our bodies will change. When you incorporate technology into the body, the body will need to change to accommodate; it modifies and adapts to this new input. How we adapt to this change will be very interesting.
Ross Bryant: Do you think anything will exist in the near future that will enhance people’s perception?
Neil Harbisson: I think we will start with very simple things like bone conduction. It’s very simple and gives you the advantage of having a new audio input. Having bone conduction sensors is something we could use a lot. We will have antennas for different reasons. In my case, I’m using an antenna to perceive colour, but antennas could be used for perceiving many other things that we cannot perceive.
Having a bone input gives us a sense that doesn’t block any other senses, so I think this gives us a lot of options. Also, just having sensors at the back of our body is something you can do simply with very simple technology. This enables you to have some sort of sense of what’s behind you. Also, what we’d like to see is people using small, infrared sensors that vibrate so you know when there’s someone behind which creates a 360 degree perception. Then there’s other things such as orientation. Having a small compass implanted that vibrates whenever you face north could help a lot.
Ross Bryant: Do you have a favourite architect that you enjoy listening to?
Neil Harbisson: Yes! I enjoy listening to Antoni Gaudí’s architecture. All of the spaces in his buildings have very interesting spaces that are just musical.
Ross Bryant: You were officially recognised as a cyborg in the UK in 2004 after you battled to have the Eyeborg included in your passport photo. Are there others with this recognised status or are you the first?
Neil Harbisson: I don’t think I’m the first of anything. I just know that the government in England wouldn’t allow me to have the electronic eye on my passport photo. I insisted that I wanted to have it included in the photo as it was an extension of my senses and a part of my body. In my case, I had to send many letters.
Ross Bryant: What cyborg rights would you like to see implemented?
Neil Harbisson: Human rights, but applied to people who wear technology as part of their body. There’s public places that don’t allow people in if they wear electronic devices and that’s why we defend the rights of cyborgs. We defend their rights to go into these places. It’s not creating new rights, it’s just defending basic rights really.
Ross Bryant: At what point did you begin to feel like a cyborg?
Neil Harbisson: Feeling like a cyborg was a gradual process. First, I felt that the eyeborg was giving me information, afterwards I felt it was giving me perception, and after a while it gave me feelings. It was when I started to feel colour and started to dream in colour that I felt the extension was part of my organism.
Ross Bryant: Am I right in saying that you designed a fashion range based on people’s favourite music?
Neil Harbisson: Yeah, we designed clothes that sound good. We created a full collection but now we just have a tie, a dress and a pair of trousers that are specific songs. Depending on what kind of colours you use, the piece of clothing will sound just like a specific song.
Ross Bryant: How do you think cybernetics will transform design, art and fashion in the future?
Neil Harbisson: The good thing about cybernetics is that it can allow you to have new senses. When you have a new sense, you can express yourself through it in a way that has never been explored before in fashion, architecture or any other type of art that exists. It’s about exploring whole new possibilities, new senses that you can express who you are.
London studio MAP worked with computer company Kano to create parts for the machine, designed as kit for learning about how computers work.
The kit runs on the Raspberry Pi platform – a customisable single-board computer that allows the user to add components.
MAP created a transparent case for the Raspberry Pi board, comprising two C-shaped transparent shells that clip together to secure the cable connections but leave the top open for the user to experiment with adding additional parts.
“We knew that it was important to protect the Raspberry Pi board and we were frustrated to see that most of the cases on the market actually seal the board in a box,” said MAP director Jon Marshall. “Our two-part bumper case provides protection while encouraging Kano users to experiment and make.”
A clear cover can be added over the board to protect the components or a speaker and small amplifier powered directly from the Raspberry Pi can be clipped on the top.
The kit comes as a case full of colourful parts with an instruction manual containing assembly details.
It includes a wireless keyboard, the Raspberry Pi with its customisable case, a speaker module, packaging and accessories. These elements can be used with a generic computer screen or monitor.
The parts are packaged in a bright orange box, designed to fit through a standard letterbox for easier delivery and be used to store the kit when not in use. The inner box is printed to show how the coloured wires connect to the Raspberry Pi board.
“We wanted to create the first computer that anyone can make – simple, fun, and powerful,” said Kano co-founder and head of product Alex Klein.
A Kickstarter campaign to crowd fund the project launches today.
Keep reading for more text from MAP:
Creative consultancy MAP and computer company Kano have together created a hands-on computer kit that you can make yourself. Using the well-known Raspberry Pi as its platform, users can learn and have fun while making it.
The prototype is now complete and a Kickstarter campaign will launch on 19 November. The kit costs $99 or £69. You can buy one for yourself or sponsor kits for a student, school, or institution through Kano’s not-for-profit programme, Kano Academy.
MAP worked with Kano on designing the kit and all of the components as a complete experience. MAP’s design team set out to make the Kano kit as friendly and as fun to use as Lego. The kit includes a new wireless keyboard, Raspberry Pi and a new type of customisable case, a unique speaker module, packaging and accessories.
MAP designed the Kano kit to guide users quickly and intuitively through the set-up. The packaging was designed to be kept and used as storage for the kit and its components, rather than being thrown away. A colourful outer sleeve keeps the kit protected, with the overall size optimised to fit through most letterboxes (reducing costs and making delivery easy). The inner box has a printed diagram of the cable connections to ensure a fast and easy-to-follow set-up. The components are clearly laid out to ease understanding. Reminiscent of a traditional board game, the robust inner tray keeps the components organised when you have finished playing and pack them away.
MAP designed a protective plastic case for the Raspberry Pi computer board that consists of two C-shaped bumpers in clear plastic. These snap around the board making it easy to handle and stabilising the cable connections while leaving both the top and bottom open for experimentation. There are additional clip-in covers that can be added when you want to enclose the Pi, or connect more components. For a first “making” project based on the basic kit, MAP have developed a special cover with a speaker and small amplifier that is powered directly from the Raspberry Pi.
The colour of light emitted by this lamp can be controlled using syringes filled with red, green and blue ink (+ movie).
Russian designer Taras Sgibnev developed the interactive product as a physical expression of the way red, green and blue light are used in digital interfaces to create a full spectrum of different hues.
“The project represents the process of analogue to digital conversion of colours,” said Sgibnev. “As a result any colour can be generated through the RGB-based mixing system.”
Syringes suspended below the lamp are connected to another set inside the body using clear tubes so the ink can be seen moving towards or away from the lamp.
The handles of the syringes inside the lamp are attached to sliding switches connected to an Arduino microprocessor that controls the colour output of rings of RGB LEDs.
“The syringes allow people to gradually change the colour of the lamp light in an unconventional way by providing a simple and intuitive interface,” explained Sgibnev.
The LED bulbs are fixed to a reflective cylinder that ensures an even light penetrates the translucent plastic cover, which sits between a wooden base and lid.
The lamp can be suspended with the syringes dangling from the bottom or turned upside down to sit on a table.
Focus sur cette série “Deconstructed” du photographe canadien Brandon Allen, qui présente en détails et de manière complexe et déstructuré les manettes de jeu vidéo. Un tour d’horizon à travers les manettes Xbox, Playstation, Dreamcast, Super NES, Saturn, Megadrive, ou Wii. Plus d’images et de détails dans la suite.
News:robots could soon be operating on beating human hearts while a surgeon based in a different part of the world directs the procedure remotely, according to a designer working on a new generation of medical equipment.
The Miro Surge system: a surgeon controls three robots at the operating table
The surgeon would see a static heart on a 3D screen and the robots would attune themselves to the heart’s movement, overcoming many of the risks of existing heart surgery techniques.
“Our ultimate ambition is robot-supported surgery on the beating heart,” said Tilo Wüsthoff, an industrial designer at German national aeronautics and space research centre DLR. “For the surgeon this means that he will see a virtually stabilised video picture of the beating heart. He can focus on his task while the robot follows the motion of the beating heart.”
The MiroSurge system with three Miro robot arms mounted at the operating table
Surgeons sitting at a remote console would use telemanipulation to control the robot arms, allowing sophisticated operations to be carried out using minimally invasive surgery (MIS) techniques that require minimal incisions in the patient’s skin.
Telemanipulation techniques would also allow surgeons on earth to operate on astronauts in space, Wüsthoff said. “Ensuring medical assistance for astronauts with telemanipulated robots is part of different visions for long-term space missions to remote locations such as Mars,” he said.
Miro instruments for minimal invasive surgery
MiroSurge, the surgery-performing robots developed by Wüsthoff, appear in the science fiction movie Ender’s Game, which was released this month.The robots carry out a remote operation on Ender, the lead character, who is an astronaut fighting off an alien invasion of earth. “The robot removes an implant from [lead character] Ender’s neck,” said Wüsthoff.
Minimally invasive surgery is preferable to open surgery because there is less risk of infection and quicker recovery times. However complex operations such as heart surgery are difficult to carry out using MIS techniques, because the surgeon cannot see what is happening and because the of the movement of the beating heart.
Miro instruments for minimal invasive surgery
Surgeons today use a heart-lung machine to take over the functions of the heart during surgery, but this is traumatic and risky to the patient. MicroSurge techniques would allow the patient’s heart to continue beating normally while the surgeon would watch the operation on a 3D screen via an endoscope within the patient’s body, which would show an apparently static heart.
“[It] allows the surgeon to focus on his medical skills,” said Wüsthoff. “He can get back to being a surgeon instead of an operator of a complex technical system.”
The MicroSurge robot arms would control slender surgical implements that would be inserted through small openings in the patient’s skin. Several robots mounted around the operating table would work together to carry out surgery.
Here’s a short interview with Tilo Wüsthoff:
Rose Etherington: How does MiroSurge feature in the Ender’s Game movie?
Tilo Wüsthoff: MiroSurge is part of a key sequence at the beginning of the film where the robot removes an implant from [lead character] Ender’s neck that is part of the military training/observation programme.
Rose Etherington: How realistic is this? How will robot-assisted surgery will develop next?
Tilo Wüsthoff: The DLR is working on a telesurgery scenario called MiroSurge that consists of a master console (input) and three robots that are tele-operated by a surgeon. Our aim is to provide a truly versatile system for robot assisted minimal invasive surgery. On that we are working together with surgeons and their teams.
These people are creative minds too and in the future it will be the users, it will be the medical staff that will come up with ideas and concepts for novel surgical procedures in the operating room.
Rose Etherington: What kind of advances in procedures or machinery could we see in five or ten years’ time?
Tilo Wüsthoff: The key objective of the DLR MiroSurge system is to overcome the drawbacks of conventional minimal invasive surgery: the surgeon virtually regains direct access to the operating field by having 3D endoscopic sight, force feedback, and restored hand-eye-coordination. So it is actually the technical complexity of the system that allows the surgeon to focus on his medical skills. He can get back to being a surgeon instead of an operator of a complex technical system.
Our ultimate ambition is robot-supported surgery on the beating heart. The application of the heart-lung machine would become obsolete for a whole variety of procedures that way. Collaterally, the very traumatizing effects of the heart-lung machine on the patient could be avoided (eg blood contact with extrinsic surfaces, inevitable blood clotting attenuation, typical generalized inflammation reaction).
For the surgeon this means that he will see a virtually stabilized video picture of the beating heart. He can focus on his task while the robot follows the motion of the beating heart.
Rose Etherington: Would the surgeon still need to be in the operating theatre?
Tilo Wüsthoff: A key aspect of robot assisted technology is that it can be used in a telepresence setup, meaning that the surgeon can operate in a remote location. For us as part of the DLR, the national aeronautics and space research centre of the Federal Republic of Germany, this is important in the context of space travel. Ensuring medical assistance for astronauts with tele-manipulated robots is part of different visions for long-term space missions to remote locations such as Mars.
Hairfall is a common problem across all generations and gender. It is kinda highlighted when we brush our hair or use a hair dryer. Unruly strands breakaway and gather in an embarrisong pile on the floor, and many a times we don’t find the time to clean the mess. With the Vacuum Dryer one can easily remedy the situation. One end of the nozzle works as a hair dryer and the other as a handy vacuum cleaner. Awesome!
Designer: Jeong Shin Yoon
– Yanko Design Timeless Designs – Explore wonderful concepts from around the world! Shop CKIE – We are more than just concepts. See what’s hot at the CKIE store by Yanko Design! (Hairy Situation was originally posted on Yanko Design)
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
A semi-zoomed look at ‘Moon’
