New Technology

spnKiX motorized skates now available to buy

2012-07-18T07:20:00.002-07:00

We've been tracking spnKiX motorized skates here at Gizmag since 2010 when they existed as nothing but a concept. Then in 2011, after more than thirty prototypes were rejected, a final version made it onto Kickstarter and the product was successfully funded to the tune of US$120,000. Now spnKiX are available for anyone to buy ... but they're not cheap.

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spnKiX strap on skates feature an 85 W wheel motor, are capable of speeds up to 8-mph and have a range of around 6 miles. The onboard Lithium-ion battery takes five hours to charge and lasts for up to 500 cycles. Control is via a handheld wireless remote controller and the skates are listed as being suitable for anyone weighing 180lbs-or-less who wants to take the effort out of very short trips.

Getting in early on Kickstarter would have netted a pair of the skates for spnKiX for US$375, but as predicted, the actual retail price has now been set much higher - $699. While this does seem expensive for a mode of transport that may get you from A to B but might run out of juice before you reach C, a set of spnKiX could definitely provide an entertaining interlude each day (as seen in the video below).

Car-to-Car Communication System to Get a Massive Road Test

2011-09-16T08:29:00.000-07:00

A trial involving thousands of cars could pave the way for technology aimed at cutting accidents and traffic jams.

Technology that would allow cars to talk to each other—to help prevent accidents and improve traffic flow—is about to get a real-world road test following new funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Many high-end cars already come with sensors capable of spotting a vehicle in a driver's blind spot, or warning that the car is drifting out of lane. However, these technologies, which use radar, laser, or video sensors, have a limited view. Car-to-car communications could provide even more sophisticated earlier warnings—for example, when a car several vehicles ahead brakes suddenly.

Last month, the DOT awarded $14.9 million to the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute to test the technology, known as vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication. The system to be tested relies on dedicated short-range radio communication to allow cars to signal one another and receive messages from traffic equipment.

The DOT estimates that 80 percent of serious crashes could be addressed by this technology. "This is the next major safety advancement, one that's comparable to seat belts, air bags, and electronic stability control," said Scott Belcher, president and CEO of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, a nonprofit founded to promote advanced car technologies.

The technology will be tested in a variety of situations; it will alert the driver when it is unsafe to pass, and when someone is approaching an intersection at a speed that could cause a collision. Each car will be equipped with a radio that signals its speed and direction of travel, as determined by GPS, to other cars. It will also send this information to suitably equipped traffic equipment.

The University of Michigan is partnering with eight automakers, a number of which began working collaboratively to develop a uniform platform for implementing the technology in 1995. These carmakers will provide 64 cars equipped with the radios, while an additional group of ordinary cars will be fit with devices so they can transmit signals, making up a total of roughly 3,000 vehicles. Drivers will be recruited from among the 20,000 employees of the university's medical center.

Peter Sweatman, director of the Transportation Research Institute, says Ann Arbor is an ideal test bed, since it's a concentrated area with only three central thoroughfares out of the city, making it likely that the equipped cars will regularly encounter each other. The driving portion will run for a year, and data will be collected and may be used by the DOT's National Highway Safety Traffic Administration to decide, by 2013, if the technology has enough benefits to be approved. If approved, the technology would be rolled out over 10 years, Sweat man says.

Smart Phones Help Manage Chronic Illness

2011-09-10T11:51:00.000-07:00

App stores are exploding with programs designed to help people monitor their health using a smart phone. But the majority of these apps merely make it easier for patients to record health measures, such as weight or blood pressure. It's unclear if they actually significantly improve health behavior.

Joseph Cafazzo, a biomedical engineer at the University Health Network, in Toronto, and collaborators have developed apps that do much more. Their apps interface wirelessly with medical devices—including a blood-pressure monitor and a blood-sugar monitor—and offer suggestions based on the readings. They found that people using the programs lowered their blood pressure and were more vigilant about monitoring and testing their blood sugar.

One of the most interesting findings was that doctors seemed to play no role in the change. "It was solely patients becoming responsible for their own care," says Cafazzo, who heads the university's Centre for Global eHealth Innovation.

Cafazzo's efforts were partly a result of the growing use of smart phones as medical tools, as well as an increase in remote and home monitoring devices that are moving medicine outside the doctor's office.

But unlike many existing monitoring systems, Cafazzo sees his work bringing greater responsibility to the patient. "The goal of classic home monitoring is to collect information and deliver it to the doctor, who has to analyze and act on it, then return that information to the patient," he says. "It's not really self-care."

Gel Lets Doctors Fix Ruptured Blood Vessels without Sutures

2011-09-10T11:46:00.000-07:00

A synthetic, temperature-sensitive gel could help surgeons reconnect blood vessels more quickly, safely, and easily. The new gel, successfully tested in rats, could also enable more complex robotic surgery as well as minimally invasive surgery.

There have been few advances in the art of reconnecting blood vessels since French surgeon Alexis Carrel received the Nobel Prize in 1912 for his method of sewing them together. About a decade ago, surgeon Geoffrey Gurtner found himself longing for a substance that could be poured into the tiny blood vessels he was struggling to reconnect in order to prop them open while he sewed them together. "A lot of surgeries require reconnecting vessels," he says. "For two-thirds of operations, this would be helpful."

When Gurtner took a post at Stanford University, he partnered with a group of Stanford chemical engineers and biomaterials experts who adapted a substance called Poloxymer 407, which is already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for internal use, to do the job.

The trick was to tweak the properties of the substance so that it changes from a liquid to a solid state a few degrees above body temperature. The group used a halogen lamp to heat up the area around a severed blood vessel in rats, added the poloxymer, and then sealed the two ends with surgical glue.

"The liquid turns into a solid, and then instead of a bunch of collapsible floppy pieces of linguini, you have something like pixie sticks," Gurtner says. After connecting them, "you're left with a scarless joint between the two blood vessels."