Gizmorama - December 22, 2014

Good Morning,

Prosthetic technology has had another amazing breakthrough. A team of researchers have developed stretchable synthetic skin that has a sense of touch. That's incredible!

Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

P.S. Did you miss an issue? You can read every issue from the Gophercentral library of newsletters on our exhaustive archives page. Thousands of issues, all of your favorite publications in chronological order. You can read AND comment. Just click GopherArchives

***
*-- Stretchable high-tech skin could make prosthetics touch-sensitive --*
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (UPI) - Prosthetics technology keeps getting better and better. This year was witness to a half-dozen or so breakthroughs, enabling prosthetics-users to control artificial limbs with their brains. Now, a team of researchers from Korea and the United States say they've developed stretchable synthetic skin that has a sense of touch.

The newly developed polymer, which is still being perfected in the lab, is outfitted with a dense and intricate network of ultra thin gold and silicon sensors. The technology will enable the wearer to transmit touch sensations from prosthetic to the body, and is also outfitted with humidity and temperature sensors to regulate body heat -- so the prosthetic well feel as though it is the same temperature as the rest of the wearer's skin and body.

It's not the first time scientists have unveiled touch-sensitive materials, but the latest iteration is the most sensitive and stretchable yet.

"If you have these sensors at high resolution across the finger, you can give the same tactile touch that the normal hand would convey to the brain," Roozbeh Ghaffari, a researcher with the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based startup MC10, told the MIT Technology Review.

While researchers seem to have conquered the task of creating touch-senstive skin, the challenge of connecting said skin to the wearer's nervous system -- so the user than actually feel the technology in action -- has proved more difficult.

Early lab tests using rats proved inconclusive. "To tell the exact kinds of feeling," said study author Dae-Hyeong Kim, a researcher at Seoul National University, "we need to move onto larger animals, which would be our future work."

The technology is detailed in the latest issue of the journal Nature Communications.


*-- New and improved Skype offers real-time voice translation --*
SAN FRANCISCO (UPI) - Sometimes it seems like Mac users have all the fun. But on Monday, Microsoft's Skype unveiled a demo of its new translation app. And Translator Preview, which can translate Spanish into English (and vice versa) in near real time, was only made available to Windows 8.1 users.

In addition to translating spoken conversation, the new program preview also features real-time translation of 40-plus instant messaging languages. More languages are expected to be introduced to the live-audio function soon.

"This is just the beginning of a journey that will transform the way we communicate with people around the world," Skype wrote in a blog post on Monday. "Our long-term goal for speech translation is to translate as many languages as possible on as many platforms as possible."

Marketed as a way to connect school classrooms from all over the world, Skype unveiled its new translation software by having it demoed by two elementary school classrooms -- one in Mexico City and one in Tacoma, Washington. The two classes played a game of "Mystery Skype," whereby each class took turns asking questions to try to determine the other's location.

For those looking to get in on the action, new and improved versions of the translation app will be shared with those that sign up at Skype's website.

Missed an Issue? Visit the Gizmorama Archives