Exoskeleton Helps Paralysed Woman

A woman who became paralysed from the chest down after contracting viral meningitis has described the physical and mental benefits of a life-changing exoskeleton. The equipment, known as the Exomotus M4, is a robot that moves the user's leg in a natural walking pattern.

The woman said the exoskeleton has brought her massive benefits, helping her circulation and bone density, having already been diagnosed with osteopenia - loss of bone density - from not putting weight on her legs for two years.

More information:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy9gjl518po

Cats Can See Through Camouflage

Tracking objects that look a lot like their surroundings is a big problem for many autonomous vision systems. AI algorithms can solve this camouflage problem, but they take time and computing power. A new camera designed by researchers in South Korea provides a faster solution. The camera takes inspiration from the eyes of a cat, using two modifications that let it distinguish objects from their background, even at night. This camera copied two adaptations from cats’ eyes: their vertical pupils and a reflective structure behind their retinas. Combined, these allowed the camera to be 10 percent more accurate at distinguishing camouflaged objects from their backgrounds and 52 percent more efficient at absorbing incoming light. While conventional cameras can clearly see the foreground and background of an image, the slitted pupils of a cat focus directly on a target, preventing it from blending in with its surroundings. In conventional camera systems, when there is adequate light, the aperture—the camera’s version of a pupil, is small and circular.

This structure allows for a large depth of field (the distance between the closest and farthest objects in focus), clearly seeing both the foreground and the background. By contrast, cat eyes narrow to a vertical pupil during the day. This shifts the focus to a target, distinguishing it more clearly from the background. The researcher’s 3D printed a vertical slit to use as an aperture for their camera. They tested the vertical slit using seven computer vision algorithms designed to track moving objects. The vertical slit increased contrast between a target object and its background, even if they were visually similar. It beat the conventional camera on five of the seven tests. For the two tests it performed worse than the conventional camera, the accuracies of the two cameras were within 10 percent of each other. The researchers created an artificial version of cat’s biological structure by placing a silver reflector under each photodiode in the camera. Photodiodes without a reflector generated current when more than 1.39 watts per square meter of light fell on them, while photodiodes with a reflector activated with 0.007 W/m2 of light.

More information:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/night-vision-camera

Apple Vision Pro’s Eye Tracking Sees What People Type

A group of six computer scientists are revealed a new attack against Apple’s Vision Pro mixed reality headset where exposed eye-tracking data allowed them to decipher what people entered on the device’s virtual keyboard. The attack allowed the researchers to successfully reconstruct passwords, PINs, and messages people typed with their eyes.

Researchers did not gain access to Apple’s headset to see what they were viewing. Instead, they worked out what people were typing by remotely analyzing the eye movements of a virtual avatar created by the Vision Pro. This avatar can be used in Zoom calls, Teams, Slack, Reddit, Tinder, Twitter, Skype, and FaceTime.

More information:

https://www.wired.com/story/apple-vision-pro-persona-eye-tracking-spy-typing/