Honda's Wearable Assistive Walker

Honda has unveiled a robotic walking aid that they claim reduces stress on the legs and knees of the wearer and enables them to preform tasks by expending less effort. "This should be as easy to use as a bicycle," said engineer Jun Ashihara at Honda's Tokyo headquarters. "It reduces stress, and you should feel less tired." The device is computer controlled and looks like a bicycle seat with legs. Honda envisions it's auto factory workers donning the devices to enable them to perform their tasks more easily, this is especially important to the company considering Japan's aging population.
CNN has more detail here.

Tongue Computer Interface

Researchers at the School of Computer and Electrical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology have created an input device that the user wears on their head and senses the movement of a small magnet that is placed on the tongue. The user moves his / her tongue in one of six positions to indicate their intentions similar to the movement of the mouse. Because the tongue is directly wired to the brain, by passing the spinal cord, the device is an excellent option for those with spinal cord injuries providing them with a method of controlling wheel chairs and computers. Sciencentral.com has the story here.

MIT's Autonomous Wheelchair

MIT researchers are creating an autonomous wheelchair that can learn the locations in a given building, and take its occupant to any given place in reaction to a verbal command. "It's a system that can learn and adapt to the user," says Nicholas Roy, assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics and co-developer of the wheelchair. "People have different preferences and different ways of referring" to places or objects, says Roy, the aim is to personalize each wheelchair to its user and the user's environment. The wheelchair requires a first time guided tour to learn about it's environment, with the user providing verbal clues as to where it currently is. For instance, as the wheelchair is pushed around for the first time, the patient or a caregiver would say: "this is my room" or "here we are in the foyer" or "nurse's station." MIT News has the complete story here.

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GM Working On Windshield To Aid Aging Boomers

With the number of drivers 65 and older on the road in the US nearly doubling in the next 20 years, General Motors is working on ways to assist these drivers as their eyesight wanes. Employing infrared sensors and a camera, the new technology takes what's happening on the road and enhances it, assisting drivers with vision problems to see a little more clearly what is on the horizon. "... during a foggy drive, a laser projects a blue line onto the windshield that follows the edge of the road. Or if infrared sensors detect a person or animal in the driver's path during a night drive, its outline is projected on the windshield to highlight its location." according to this CNN article. An interesting concept so long as what is projected on the windshield does not itself become a distraction!