Wearable technology has the potential to take our lives to a whole new level, but so far the emerging contenders are a little disappointing. Google Glass is far less useful and versatile than we expected it to be, and smart watches are similarly disappointing in their scope.

The future of wearables, however, might be objects that go under the skin rather than outside of it. New Deal Design envisions the future as a gadget like UnderSkin.

Just like it sounds, UnderSkin is a wearable that is embedded beneath the skin on your hand and runs off of the electrical energy created by your body. The UnderSkin is a flat, pentagonal device that, while it isn’t close to being produced yet, the designers believe will become common within approximately five years.

The possibilities for the UnderSkin range from the mundane – unlocking doors or making payments – to the intriguingly personal, like providing health alerts or exchanging contact information between two wearers. Different display patterns on the lights in the device could indicate what kind of information is being provided or exchanged.

One of the potential challenges of the UnderSkin system is future obsolescence. Mobile phones have progressed light years in just a short time, and it would be considerably more difficult to upgrade a device that’s actually implanted in your body.

Even with these potential obstacles, UnderSkin and other similar wearables could facilitate the simple exchange of information without requiring us to constantly stare at screens.

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Implantable medical devices have been a huge benefit to millions of people, but there have been problems plaguing this type of technology from the very beginning. Although scientific advances have led to smaller and more efficient implanted medical devices, one problem has never really been solved: the battery.

Currently, the medical implant devices (like pacemakers) have to be removed from the body when the battery needs to be replaced. This results in costly, painful, and dangerous surgeries. A new technology described in a study from Stanford University’s Ada Poon could result in implantable medical devices that are the size of a grain of rice and do not require bulky batteries.

The technology has been tested in the form of a pacemaker installed in a rabbit. The device, hardly bigger than the tip of the scientist’s tweezers, is powered by near-field communication power transfer. This method has been explored in the past, but it was considered too weak to power implanted devices.

To solve this problem, Poon’s method places a metal plate powered by a cell phone battery a few inches from the body. The method uses the rabbit’s own body tissue to act to help deliver the electrical signal to the pacemaker. Although it is not yet known if this method will work on humans, the research is very promising. It could mean fewer surgeries, simpler power delivery, and more effective medical implants.

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Osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis are incredibly painful conditions that often result in the need for joint implants. This is because the arthritis destroys the cartilage that protects the ends of bones from damaging friction. Ordinarily, when the condition gets so bad that joint movement is limited and painful, permanent implants are the go-to treatment. But researchers at the Tampere University of Technology have been working on an alternative since the 90s. RegJoint, which would replace man-made permanent implants with biodegradeable ones, actually encourages the regrowth of the patient’s own fibrous tissue.

Eventually, the patient’s own tissue takes over and leaves only a new, functional “neojoint” made of his or her own biological cells. The RegJoint implant is absorbed into the body harmlessly and the repaired joint’s mobility is completely restored. The implants are currently meant only for the small joints in the fingers and toes and are now undergoing human trials. They have already been implanted in some 200 patients and recently received the go-ahead to be sold in Europe.

The post Biodegradable Joint Implants Grow New Finger + Toe Joints first appeared on Gajitz.