Tech Tuesday: 3d printed hand and wearable superhero tech

This week on News 1130 radio in Vancouver, I discussed these items:

• RoboHand: After losing his fingers in a work accident, South African carpenter Richard Van As set out to design replacements that could be made on a desktop 3d printer. Working with a designer in Washington State, Ivan Owen, they collaborated over the internet and developed the Robohand project. Now the project has grown beyond just replacing Richard’s fingers, as it now helps children all over the world that are born without fingers or hands (Amniotic Band Syndrome) with easily printable mechanical fingers that can be replaced as the child grows or the parts get damaged.
• Eidos Technology: Students at the Royal College of Art in London have been experimenting with a number of different technologies (called sensory augmentation) that could some day lead to wearable tech not unlike what Tony Stark has in his Ironman suit. They’ve prototyped a vision enhancer that processes an onboard camera and gives the wearer a number of filters to see patterns in a form of timelapse vision. The other device allows you to filter out voices and background noise to allow you to focus on one person to hear them via vibrations that make it appear they are voices inside your head.