More than 40 years ago, Colorado resident Les Baugh lost both of his arms from the shoulder down in an electrical accident. He could never have predicted that, four decades after the accident, he would be the first double amputee ever to test out twin mind-controlled cyborg arms.

The Modular Prosthetic Limbs have been in development at Johns Hopkins University for the past decade. They work with a Virtual Integration Environment, or VIE, which is kind of like a virtual reality version of the prosthetic limbs. When using either the VIE or the physical limbs, Baugh has only to think about moving his robot arms to make them do his bidding.

Before the arms could be fitted, though, Baugh had to undergo a painful targeted muscle reinnervation surgery. The surgery redirected the nerves that once controlled Baugh’s arms and hands, making it possible to control the new cyborg arms with his mind. Once he recovered from the surgery, Baugh was fitted with a custom socket that fits over his torso and shoulders.

The torso supports the weight of the prosthetic limbs and also makes the neurological connections between the brain and the newly rewired nerves. Once the socket was completed and Baugh was fitted with his robot arms, he was able to perform tasks like moving a cup from a counter-height shelf to a higher shelf. He also picked up a ball from the lower shelf and dropped it into a basket on the higher shelf.

Baugh managed to learn all of this with only 10 days of training, and the team was astonished at how quickly and easily he was able to start controlling both arms. He was performing complex motions on both arms at the same time – a feat which can probably be half attributed to the intuitive design of the VIE and the exceptionally advanced prosthetic limbs. But a large portion of the credit has to go to Mr. Baugh, who put on those arms and just started moving them around like they’d always been part of his body.

The post Amputee Tests First-Ever Mind Controlled Dual Robot Arms first appeared on Gajitz.

When Pong got popular, parents everywhere criticized it for being a lazy person’s version of a sport. They worried that it would encourage kids to avoid physical activity in favor of virtual games. They were right. Now there’s a slightly more physical way to play ping-pong that still doesn’t involve actually setting up a table and keeping track of that little ball.

Virtual Pong (a name we find delightfully ridiculous) from Sharper Image involves waving around handheld devices similar to Wii remotes to “hit” a light that bounces around on the ceiling and walls.

The setup consists of a small base unit that sits on the table and projects “balls of light.” You use the “racquets” to bounce the light back and forth between opponents; there is also a solo setting that lets you play against the game console. Of course, you could do the same thing with almost any modern video gaming console and the right game, but for $60 Virtual Pong is cheaper than any of those and probably cheaper than just buying a real ping-pong table.

The post Practically Pong: Weird Analog Version of the Video Game first appeared on Gajitz.

Lego building blocks are moving into the virtual world with a new series of building sets called Lego Fusion. The sets let you build in the real world and then interact and play with your creations in a virtual setting via a tablet app. There are currently four sets in the series: Create and Race, Town Master, Battle Towers, and Resort Designer.

The fun begins with a piece called a Fusion Capture Plate and a building facade – or in the case of Create and Race, a racecar. There are no instructions for building these structures; you can design them however you like (with a couple of small requirements like a door or wheels) and then use the app to “capture” your creation. In the app, your two-dimensional building front or racecar becomes a 3D interactive structure.

Once your building or car is recreated in the app, you can add on to it, create a town around it, and play games or complete challenges. Each set has its own mode of game play. In the Battle Towers game, for example, you defend your tower from an attack, and in Town Master you complete tasks to make the residents of your virtual town happy.

The Fusion Capture Plate can be used over and over in the game to let you build and add more structures to your in-app world. Accomplishing in-game tasks will get you coins that you can spend on stuff to add to the virtual Lego world. Set to sell for $35 (U.S.), the sets will add a whole new level to the fun that kids (and grown-ups) have playing with Legos.

The post Let’s Go Lego! Build in Real Life, Play in a Virtual World first appeared on Gajitz.

Creating 3D art has traditionally been done with cold apparatuses like a stylus, keyboard and mouse. Researchers at Purdue University are getting more personal by creating a device that will allow designers to mold their 3D images with their hands.

The tool is called Shape-It-Up. Using a Microsoft Kinect camera, it records the designer’s hand gestures, sends them through some custom computer algorithms and presto!  They’re working with their design in the tool’s virtual workspace using their hands.

The Shape-It-Up design tool is compatible with 3D printers, so the finished product can be materialized. “The conventional tools have non-intuitive and cognitively onerous processes requiring extensive training. We conclusively demonstrate the modeling of a wide variety of asymmetric 3-D shapes within a few seconds,” said Purdue’s Donald W. Feddersen Professor of Mechanical Engineering Karthik Ramani. We wonder how Michelangelo would have done in this medium.

The post Put Your Hands Up…and Use Them to Mold Some 3D Art first appeared on Gajitz.