Robot Limbs for Amputees

Dean Kamen, creator of the Segway, has plans for robotic prosthetic limbs for the hundreds of amputees who have lost their limbs fighting in Iraq. With a prototype already made a mere 13 months after the Department of Defense requested it, the amazing device is sensitive and precise enough to pick up a pen:

"After several months of work, collaborating with researchers at top universities, Kamen’s team had gotten a prototype working just the day before. The video of the first demo had been e-mailed to him just before his presentation, and he played it onstage. It showed a person wearing an artificial arm -- just a lot of metal and wires, not covered with anything, picking up a pen and paper and writing something down. The audience was speechless. And so was Kamen."

See Kamen at the Colbert Report, discussing his many inventions: "Please tell me this leads to Robot Battles," Colbert says.

Inventing a better future [Infoworld via BoingBoing]