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Attaching activities

3D printing can deliver adaptors for handheld toothbrushes and bespoke prosthetic limbs. Now, a London-based startup has come up with a new concept, developing a special sleeve for those with below-elbow limb differences. Once the soft, lightweight sleeve is attached, different adapters can be fitted to it. Enabling those who rely on prosthetics to undertake a range of activities....

Changing clarity

Some car tyres can adapt their size according to the terrain. Flexible walls mean flats can be easily converted. But eyewear that automatically adjusts focus between near and distant objects? Sounds unlikely, but it’s exactly the product a startup from Japan has recently developed together with a design firm. Before first use, consumers adjust the diopter for both integrated...

Colourful salvation

Seaweed can be used as a fire retardant. In Berlin, meanwhile, a female designer has developed a thin algae-based film and coated it with a natural dye. The aim? To stop still edible food being wasted. Her film changes colour according to the pH value of what it’s covering, reacting upon contact with gases like ammonia, produced when fish...

Asymmetrical comfort

Artificial body parts can be tailor-made for extra comfort. For women who have had mammary tissue removed because of cancer, there are bras with built-in prostheses. Still, these are not always comfortable. A London-based architect, a cancer survivor herself, teamed up with underwear specialists to create one-cup lingerie and swimwear. Because not every woman chooses breast reconstruction, and losing...

Intuitive level

Trees planted by companies can be a playful enterprise. But all game-designers need programming skills. Right? Wrong. A new platform developed by an English startup allows games to be designed intuitively. Ready-made figures, obstacles and collectable objects can be selected from a menu, with additional criteria such as size, position and movement completing the animation. Keyboard controls are quickly...

Gentle strength

Origami techniques can help vehicles achieve greater stability, whatever the terrain. Whereas, less stable objects can be lifted by robots with grippers made from soft materials such as cloth or silicon. Though useful, these grippers’ low load capacity is a limiting factor. Enter a Seoul-based research team, which is using a centuries old technique so that robots can grasp...

Pure vibrations

Subjected to high-frequency sound waves, stem cells extracted from fat tissue grow into new bone cells. Audible sound waves are useful too, as this latest innovation from a London-based designer shows: her portable speaker doubles as an air purifier. Internal ventilators along with the music’s waves remove harmful particles from the air and drive them into a special filter...

Tracking conversion

Modern, environmentally-friendly vintage cars aren't as contradictory as it sounds. Electric vehicle races are well established too. And now one of the British teams has built a drivable prototype entirely from electronic waste: they used discarded E-cigarettes, cell phones, laptops and charging cables. The waste came from companies and school pupils, and the concept was jumpstarted together with a...

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