Kongtechnology.com

Kongtechnology.com

German Factory Manufacturing Human Skin Goes Online

Posted: 26 Apr 2011 07:36 AM PDT

Technology today is speeding along at a speed at which is almost incomprehensible. Yesterday’s science fiction may very well become today’s science fact. Though are some facts stranger than fiction? It certainly must be true as we are now able to mass-produce human skin at a low cost for clinical testing and other uses.

The great minds behind this skin producing factory is Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology in Stuttgart, Germany. The factory was just in its infancy merely two years ago, and now it has come online, producing 5,000 penny-sized discs of milky translucent tissue every month.

Each disk of skin will cost about US$72, which is actually slightly more than it was expected to cost when the project was in its infancy 2 years ago.

The skin making process is controlled by robots and computers and executed in a sterile, climate controlled setting. The goal of the project is to eventually be able to factory produce human tissue, complete with blood vessels, that could be used to treat injuries or various medical conditions.

Director of the facility, Heike Walles, believes that factories such as this one is essential to efficiently produce new tissue, including those of organs. Her team has successfully produced lab engineered tissue for human transplantation, but the process is very expensive and also labour-intensive. She believes that an automated manufacturing facility is able to cut costs and simplify processes.

The skin being manufactured now is still a long way from being transplanted, but at the moment it is being used in animal testing and could potentially be used in cosmetic products.

Factory manufactured human skin! What would they think of next? I think skin is the best organ to start with. I wonder how far can this kind of technology go?

Read more...
>>  at 07:05 |  add a comment  | 

Kongtechnology.com

Kongtechnology.com

The Collector: Conceptual USB Device To Turn microSD Cards Into Refillable Thumb Drive

Posted: 21 Apr 2011 01:27 AM PDT

Ever wonder what you are going to do with all your microSD cards that are lying around? Most of them must only have a few of gigabytes in capacity, and they’re so small and easy to lose anyway, if they’re not sitting nice and snug in a device.

A lot of them must have come from the heyday of older smartphones that still used microSD cards, and you just don’t know what to do with them.

Here is a superb conceptual design that was envisioned by Yanko Design to solve the problem: The Collector.

The Collector combines both the technology of a USB flash drive and these tiny little microSD chips to create a flash drive that is ‘refillable’.

It wouldn’t have any storage of its own, but it utilises 3 microSD cards that you can swap out when they are full. It would also combine the smaller chunks of storage into a single one, for instance, if you had three 2GB cards, it would become a 6GB flash drive.

Although The Collector is currently an entirely conceptual design, I actually really want someone to build something like this. I’m curious as to why it hasn’t already been invented! It sounds like a superb idea, and I could really use it, as I have a bad habit of misplacing my SD cards.

What do you think of the concept? Would you use such a thing, or have you already done away with solid state data transfer and have gone the way of the future, with cloud storage?

Read more...
>>  at 07:07 |  add a comment  | 

Kongtechnology.com

Kongtechnology.com

Tourists Model As Their Very Own 3D Souveneirs

Posted: 11 Apr 2011 09:05 PM PDT

This is a rather more interesting take as souvenirs go, because it isn’t every day you can strike a pose on the street, and instead of having it immortalised in your digital camera, you get to bring it home with you as your very own 3D-printed sculpture.

For two weekends in January 2011, on Barcelona’s La Ramba street, in a project aptly named Be Your Own Souvenir, the BlablabLAB used three Kinects and a RepRap 3D-printer to render any willing participant to model on the street as their very own little statue.

Check out the video of the project here.

The way the project worked was simple. The participant stood on a small platform and asked to pose. Then 3 Kinects were used to capture the participant’s likeness in 360-degrees and render the person into a 3D mesh in a computer. The 3D data is then fed to the 3D printer and voila! Out comes a little statue of the person.

The aim of the project was to link the street user with arts and science, breaking the boundaries of the the producer and the consumer, the artist and the tourist.

This is just as much street art, as it would be if a sculptor had sat and carved something right there. I think this is a very exciting project. I’ve always though that 3D printers were a very interesting innovation. Some people may argue that 3D-printed ‘sculptures’ have lost a certain human touch, but I think that it’s actually a great way to make a sculpture. What do you think?

Read more...
>>  at 07:07 |  add a comment  | 

Kongtechnology.com

Kongtechnology.com

Young Engineer Wins Prize for Electronic Drum Trousers

Posted: 07 Apr 2011 12:57 AM PDT

I’ve always love the idea of incorporating musical instruments into our everyday clothing. There was one where a keyboard was built into a jacket. Now, a 17 year old student of Hymers College in England has created a pair of jeans that double as a drum kit.

Aseem Mishra won the senior age group title at the Young Engineer of Great Britain Competition for his invention.

Check out the BBC news story and scroll for a video of the inventor himself demonstrating his invention.

The pair of jeans allows its wearer to tap out a tune on their thighs by hitting the sensors that are woven into the fabric of the jeans.

The idea came about to Aseem when he tried to solve the problem of having to carry his drum kit around when playing at gigs with his band. It was heavy and cumbersome to have to lug his kit to every gig, so Aseem thought to fuse his two passions for drumming and electronics by trying to incorporate a drum kit into his trousers.

He will now be going to represent the UK at a science and engineering fair in Los Angeles in May.

I think it’s great that there are these science fairs for the younger generation. I love to see what these students come up with, and it just goes to show that with an innovative mind, even young ones can invent just about anything and they have the ideas to wow the crowds.

Read more...
>>  at 07:08 |  add a comment  | 
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Adsense Fortunes

Loading...

Let's Learn

Loading...

New Skills

Loading...

  © Blogger template Shush by Ourblogtemplates.com 2009

Back to TOP