Electronic cigarettes have become a big business as many smokers have opted to choose them over the traditional variety. Lack of actual smoke and tar is a major positive, but being able to “smoke” them even where smoking is not allowed may lead to a greater overall intake of nicotine. Nevertheless, many people bought e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation tool that takes away some of the habit forming qualities of real cigarettes while keeping the ever-addictive nicotine.

CN Creative, Ltd. out of Manchester, UK has raised £2 million ($3.1 million) to help bring to market its Nicadex electronic inhaler for nicotine replacement therapy. The device, which delivers vaporized pharmaceutical-grade nicotine, looks to be very much like a typical e-cigarette, but will undergo clinical trials and is planned to be used as a part of a wider smoking cessation therapy approach.

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PMD Healthcare has released its new portable spirometer that allows people with all kinds of lung conditions, like asthma, COPD and cystic fibrosis, to monitor their lung function.  The device can also provide reminders to take medications and perform tests, as well as to be used to conduct breathing exercises.

Data from the device can be uploaded via a computer for physicians to be able to analyze results over time.

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These days you can find ergonomic seats anywhere, like in cars or in the office. However, wheelchair users often don’t have ergonomic seats, despite the fact that they spend most of their days sitting in the same position in the same chair. Engineers from EMPA, an interdisciplinary research institution in Switzerland, Institute for Energy and Mobility of the Berne University of Applied Science, and r going, a Swiss rehabilitation company, have now successfully developed an ergonomic seat for electric wheelchairs.

Ergotherapist Roger Hochstrasser of r going came up with the idea because he noticed that wheelchair users develop a whole lot of complaints after spending whole days in the same position. As can be seen in the image, the backside of the seat is constructed in such a way that it simulates the structure of the human torso. The seat shell can also adapt to the contour of the user’s torso thanks to an articulated backrest. It can also rotate and tilt forwards and backwards.

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A team of developers, Saron Paz, Oleg Imanilov, Zvika Markfeld, and Tomer Daniel, have developed a novel sign language interpreter glove called the Show&Tell. The prototype glove, which was demonstrated at a recent Google developers’ event in Tel Aviv, incorporates a number of sensors to detect hand gestures which are then interpreted via a smartphone app to produce text. Flex sensors embedded in the fingers of the glove detect finger position while an accelerometer and tilt sensor detect hand movement and orientation as demonstrated in the video below.

It is not clear how many gestures the system can interpret and the device would seem to be an early proof of concept. However, it could offer a simple and cheap interface for people not versed in sign language to easily communicate with the hearing-impaired.

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What if you could instantly learn to do a task, like playing piano or Kung Fu, simply by watching a computer screen? It may sound like something out of a sci-fi movie like Matrix, but research coming out of Boston University suggests that this effortless method of learning may exist in the future.

The technique is called “Decoded Neurofeedback”, or “DecNef”, and it involves using decoded fMRI to induce brain activity patterns that match a known state. For example, if you wanted to have the athletic talents of basketball superstar Shaquille O’Neal, you would obtain a brain activity pattern in Shaq’s visual cortex and use DecNef to modify the patterns in your own visual cortex using fMRI. While DecNef isn’t quite possible at current technological level yet, the BU researchers have succeeded in using it in subjects to induce brain activity patterns associated with a simple shape.

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EyeBrain, a French developer of medical devices for early diagnosis of neurological diseases, has announced that its EyeBrain Tracker device is to be used in a clinical trial evaluating dyskinesia in Parkinson’s patients treated with levodopa. The EyeBrain Tracker, which was featured previously on Medgadget, measures eye movements using high resolution cameras, sampling at 300Hz. The motion analysis carried out by the system aims to identify neurological conditions which manifest in subtle changes to the eye kinetic patterns.

According to the press release the device will be used in this current trial to quantify motor function by analyzing the blinking characteristics of the patient. Professor Jean-François Tison at the University of Bordeaux, a neurologist involved in setting up the trial, explains the role of the EyeBrain tracker:

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We all know the 3-D body suits from behind-the-scenes footage of Hollywood movies. Now body suits are going to be put to use for healthcare research and improvements of sporting activities as well. Researchers from the University of Sunderland in the UK are using a body suit because it allows them to take 3-D motion capture out of the lab.

The suit, called MVN BIOMECH from Xsens out of Enschede, The Netherlands, is a 3-D human kinematic, camera-less measurement system with integrated small tracking sensors placed on the joints. Each sensor on the suit consists of three components: an accelerometer, magnetometers and a gyroscope. All together it gives information on each of the joints, the body segments between the joints and the 3-D movements. The technology sends the information a computer using a wireless signal which is then reconstructed into movements on the screen.

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Panasonic is releasing a new palm sized hearing instrument for mild to severe hearing loss. Looking like a common mp3 player, the JZ Power WH-105JZ has an LCD screen and a microphone built into the headphones. It features noise reduction, wind noise management, feedback management, L/R balance and Automatic Gain Control (AGC).

There’s also something called Scene Selector Function which provides quick changes depending on the audio environment the user is in including standard, music, party and indoors. It’s powered by an internal rechargeable battery which can be extended by popping in standard AAA’s.

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The world’s first robot system that learns to dress the physically disabled and elderly has been created by the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) in Japan.  The device incorporates “reinforcement learning” and remarkably adapts to the individual size and shape of the person within minutes.

The system comes from the collaboration of Barrett Technology‘s patented robotic WAM arms and NAIST‘s advanced computer intelligence.  The robot will potentially help older people or those disabled with maintaining a level of personal independence.

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Siri, the voice-activated intelligent assistant might have made waves when it made its debut inside the iPhone 4S last month, but a group of DIY hackers think the voice technology is already old technology. The group’s Siri hack, called Project Black Mirror, takes Siri to the next level by activating it using only your thoughts.

The technology behind Project Black Mirror, like many popular DIY hacks, centers around an Arduino microcontroller chip. EEG pads attached to the skin transfer brain activity to the Arduino, which is responsible for filtering the signals and associating patterns with certain words and Siri commands. The words are combined into phrases to form a complete Siri command, and the entire command phrase is fed to a speech synthesizer chip which audibly recites the command through the iPhone 4S’s microphone jack.

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