On-Skin Electronics

Two new kinds of on-skin electronics allow users to build and customize them directly on the body with potential applications in biometric sensing, medical monitoring, interactive prosthetic makeup and more. SkinLink, developed by the Hybrid Body Lab, is an on-skin electronic interface that can be fabricated right on the body, providing flexibility in design depending on the intended use.

ECSkin is an electrochromic display interface that also can be fabricated in situ and features modular design through tiles that can be arranged as desired. Some of the potential applications for SkinLink include vital-sign and posture monitoring, proximity sensing and body art. Both are modular prototyping toolkits, to enable much more intricate on-skin circuitry prototyping.

More information:

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2024/10/body-electronics-can-monitor-health-support-creative-expression

Dead Animals Talk Thanks to AI

Using AI dead animals are to receive a new lease of life to share their stories and even their experiences of the afterlife. The technology allows the animals to describe their time on Earth and the challenges they faced, in the hope of reversing apathy towards the biodiversity crisis. The project was devised by Nature Perspectives, a company that is building AI models to help strengthen the connection between people and the natural world. For each exhibit, the AI is fed specific details on where the specimen lived, its natural environment, and how it arrived in the collection, alongside all the available information on the species it represents.

The exhibits change their tone and language to suit the age of the person they are talking to, and can converse in more than 20 languages, including Spanish and Japanese. The platypus has an Australian twang, the red panda is subtly Himalayan, and the mallard sounds like a Brit. Through live conversations with the exhibits, Ashby hopes visitors will learn more than can fit on the labels that accompany the specimens. As part of the project, the conversations that visitors hold with the exhibits will be analysed to get a better picture of the information people want on specimens. While the AI suggests several questions, visitors can ask whatever they like.

More information:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/oct/14/ai-gives-voice-to-dead-animals-in-cambridge-exhibition

Wearables Monitor Worker Fatigue

Researchers have designed a system of wearable sensors that relies on machine learning to monitor workers for signs of physical strain and tiredness. The goal is that using new devices to help prevent accidents and injuries. To measure fatigue and physical health, researchers developed an interconnected array of six wearable sensors placed across a wearer’s torso and arms. These were coupled with two depth cameras to measure joint movements and an HD webcam to analyze movement intensity, repetition, and diminished strength over time.

Once enabled, these devices continuously monitored heart rate, skin temperature, and locomotion patterns. But given that there are no widely accepted, universal biomarker metrics for fatigue, researchers relied on the wearer’s self-reported perceived exertion levels on a 0-10 scale that they then entered into a machine learning model. Once trained, this model was then used to predict a user’s fatigue levels in real-time to provide a more nuanced understanding of the subject’s physical state than past studies, according to researchers.

More information:

https://www.popsci.com/technology/worker-fatigue-sensors/