Ziya Goes to NextFest
Aired on Wired Science - 10/31/2007

It's a combination world's fair, technology convention, and geek party: every
year, Wired magazine hosts Nextfest, where innovators from around the world
show off some of the best and most exciting ideas, gadgets and gizmos of the
near future. Ziya Tong got a sneak preview at this year's version. 

Many of the innovations  attempt to replicate or improve the human body. Zou
Ren Ti of the Xi'an Chaoren Sculpture Research Institute, for instance, has
created an android in his own image, a body double made of eerily lifelike
silica gel that can speak and make simple gestures. Then there's the team
from a Japanese university that is developing a kind of wheel-less
wheelchair, a set of robot legs that can carry a disabled person over uneven
terrain and even up stairs. 

Ziya also got a look at the hydraulically controlled artificial limbs that
have enabled an American soldier to walk and run again after losing his  
legs  in Iraq. They're a nice complement to a startlingly realistic,
muscle-controlled prosthetic limb custom-built for a woman born without a
left arm. 

For those who prefer to not move any limbs at all, a company called Brainloop
has developed a system that allows a user wearing an electroencephalogram to
navigate through a computer screen using only thoughts - something that could
someday allow the disabled to use mental commands to control wheelchairs or
home appliances. 

From:
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/wiredscience/story/58-ziya_goes_to_nextfest.html

Video
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/wiredscience/video/191-ziya_goes_to_nextfest.html

Wheel-less Wheelchair
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/wiredscience/video/145-wheel_less_wheelchair.html
http://www.takanishi.mech.waseda.ac.jp/research/parallel/WL_16rr/index.htm

New High-Tech Prosthesis
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/july-dec06/amputees_09-19.html
http://heathcalhoun.com/

Brainloop
http://www.aksioma.org/brainloop/index.html

Xian Chaoren Sculpture Research Institute
http://english.xsm.cn/
