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How much pain are you in on a scale from one to 10? This simple method is still the way pain is measured in doctors’ offices, clinics, and hospitals—but how do I know if my five out of 10 is the same as yours? A new, early-stage platform aims to more objectively measure and share our individual perception of pain. It measures brain activity in two people in order to understand how their experiences compare and recreate one person’s pain for the other. The platform was developed as a partnership between the large Tokyo-based telecommunications company NTT Docomo and startup PaMeLa, short for Pain Measurement Laboratory, in Osaka, Japan.It’s part of a project from Docomo called Feel Tech. “We are developing a human-augmentation platform designed to deepen mutual understanding between people,” a Docomo representative told IEEE Spectrum by email. (Answers were originally provided in Japanese and translated by Docomo’s public relations.) “Previously, we focused on sharing movement, touch, and taste—senses that are inherently difficult to express and communicate. This time, our focus is on pain, another sense that is challenging to articulate.” Docomo demonstrated the platform last month at the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (CEATEC), Japan’s largest electronics trade show.How Shared Pain Perception Tech WorksThe system consists of three components: a pain-sensing device, a platform for estimating the difference in sensitivity, and a heat-based actuation device. First, the system uses electroencephalography (EEG) to measure brain waves and uses an AI model to “visualize” pain as a score between 0 and 100, for both the sender and receiver. The actuation device is then calibrated based on each person’s sensitivity, so a sensation transmitted to both people will feel the same.In this initial version, the platform works with thermally induced pain stimuli. “This method allows for precise adjustment and ensures safety during research and development,” Docomo says. PaMeLa also used thermal stimulation in its research on determining the intensity level of pain, which graded the pain stimulation data of 461 subjects with machine […]

Around ten years ago, fantastic media coverage of 3D printing dramatically increased expectations for the technology. A particular darling of that coverage was the use of 3D-printing for prosthetic limbs: For example, in 2015, The New York Times celebrated the US $15 to $20 3D-printed prosthetic hands facilitated by the nonprofit E-nable, which paired hobbyist 3D printer owners with children with limb differences. The magic felt undeniable: disabled children could get cheap, freely accessible mechanical hands made by a neighbor with an unusual hobby. Similar stories about prosthetics abounded, painting a picture of an emerging high-tech utopia enabled by a technology straight out of Star Trek. But as so often happens, the Gartner Hype Cycle was in full force. By the mid-2010s, 3D-printing was in the “Peak of Inflated Expectations” phase, and prosthetics was no exception. Those LEGO-style hands getting media attention didn’t have the strength needed for a wearable device, the prints themselves had too many inaccuracies, and the designs were—as you may imagine an entirely plastic object to be—deeply uncomfortable. Quorum’s 3D-printed prostheses socket.QuorumThe so-called “Trough of Disillusionment” followed. Joe Johnson, CEO of Quorum Prosthetics in Windsor, Colorado, saw prosthetists shy away from 3D printing technologies for years. Johnson stuck it out, though, waiting for technology and bureaucracy to catch up to his ambition. A milestone happened last year when U.S. medical insurers released an “L-code” last year specifically for adjustable sockets for prosthetic limbs. An L-code allows durable medical equipment—such as prosthetics—to be handled for billing within the U.S. insurance system. Quorum’s engineers responded with a sophisticated, adjustable socket utilizing 3D printing. Quorum’s design can adjust both volume and compression on residual limbs, making a better fit, like tightening your shoe laces.Despite its high-tech and sleek appearance, Johnson says his socket could be made using traditional methods. But 3D printing makes it a “bit better and easier.” “When you look at overall cost of labor,” says Johnson, […]

Giving Tuesday, being held on 2 December this year, is a day globally dedicated to generosity and empowering individuals and organizations to transform people’s lives and communities. For this year’s event, IEEE and the IEEE Foundation invite members to invest in the organization’s charitable programs. The programs aim to inspire the next generation of engineers, provide sustainable energy to those in need, assist in emergency response efforts, and more.This Giving Tuesday, members have the opportunity to help amplify the technological breakthroughs and innovative programs that change lives globally.Double your impactThe initial US $75,000 donated to the Giving Tuesday campaign will be matched by the IEEE Foundation, dollar for dollar, up to $150,000.Donors can direct their gift to the IEEE program they feel most connected to, or they can choose to direct their donation to the IEEE Foundation for efforts that:Illuminate the possibilities of technology to address global challenges.Educate the next generation of innovators and engineers.Engage a wider audience to appreciate the impact of engineering.Energize innovation by celebrating excellence.Shape the destiny of the next generation.Help shine a light on your favorite programDonating money is not the only way to make an impact on IEEE’s Giving Tuesday. Here are some other opportunities.Become a community fundraiser and help promote your favorite IEEE philanthropic program or the IEEE Foundation to your network by creating a personalized page on the IEEE Foundation website. Once your page is set up, you can share it on your social media profiles and email it to your friends, family, and professional contacts.Share, like, and comment on Giving Tuesday posts on Facebook and LinkedIn leading up to and on the day.Post an #Unselfie photo—a picture of yourself accompanied by why you support IEEE’s philanthropic programs—on social media using the hashtags #IEEEFoundation and #IEEEGivingTuesday. The Foundation provides a tool kit with social media templates and fundraising resources on its website.For updates, check the IEEE Foundation Giving Tuesday web page and follow the Foundation on Facebook and […]

A 1980s-era semiconductor fab in Austin, Texas, is getting a makeover. The Texas Institute for Electronics (TIE), as it’s called now, is tooling up to become the only advanced packaging plant in the world that is dedicated to 3D heterogeneous integration (3DHI)—the stacking of chips made of multiple materials, both silicon and non-silicon. The fab is the infrastructure behind DARPA’s Next-Generation Microelectronics Manufacturing (NGMM) program. “NGMM is focused on a revolution in microelectronics through 3D heterogeneous integration,” said Michael Holmes, managing director of the program. Stacking two or more silicon chips inside the same package makes them act as if they are all one integrated circuit. It already powers some of the most advanced processors in the world. But DARPA predicts silicon-on-silicon stacking will result in no more than a 30-fold boost in performance over what’s possible with 2D integration. By contrast, doing it with a mix of materials—gallium nitride, silicon carbide, and other semiconductors—could deliver a 100-fold boost, Holmes told engineers and other interested parties at the program’s unofficial coming out party, the NGMM Summit, late last month.The new fab will make sure these unusual stacked chips are prototyped and manufactured in the United States. Startups, and there were many at the launch event, are looking for a place to prototype and begin manufacturing ideas that are too weird for anywhere else—and hopefully bypassing the lab-to-fab valley of death that claims many hardware startups.The state of Texas is contributing $552 million to stand up the fab and its programs, with DARPA contributing the remaining $840 million. After NGMM’s five-year mission is complete, the fab is expected to be a self-sustaining business. “We are, frankly, a startup,” said TIE CEO Dwayne LaBrake. “We have more runway than a typical startup, but we have to stand on our own.” Starting up a 3DHI FabGetting to that point will take a lot of work, but the TIE foundry is off to a quick start. On a tour of the facility, IEEE Spectrum saw multiple chip manufacturing and testing tools in various states of installation and […]

It sounds like a NASA pipe dream: a new spacecraft thruster that’s up to 40 percent more power-efficient than today’s. Even better, its fuel costs less than a thousandth as much and weighs an eighth of the mass. A startup called Orbital Arc claims it can make such a thruster.With this design, “we can go from a thruster that’s about a few inches across and several kilograms to a thruster on a chip that’s about an inch across and has the same thrust output, but weighs about an eighth as much,” the company’s founder, Jonathan Huffman, says.According to Orbital Arc, the hardware would be small enough to fit on the smallest low Earth orbit satellites but generate enough power for an interplanetary mission. Such inexpensive thrust could bring meaningful savings for satellite operators hoping to dodge debris or mission operators aiming to send probes to distant planets.The key to these innovations is a combination of cheap, readily available fuel, MEMS microfabrication, and a strong love of sci-fi.Designing a Better Thruster Thrusters generally work by creating and then expelling a plasma, pushing a spacecraft in the opposite direction. Inside ever-popular Hall thrusters, a magnetic field traps electrons in a tight, circular orbit. A noble gas—commonly xenon—drifts into a narrow channel where it collides with the circulating charge knocking off electrons and ionizing it into plasma. A high-voltage electric field then rockets the plasma out the exhaust. Orbital Arc’s technology looks a bit different and came about almost coincidentally. Huffman was a biotech consultant and self-described “sci-fi nerd” who, in his spare time, had been commissioned to design fictitious technology for a futuristic video game. He had to figure out how spacecraft might maneuver 250 years from now to make the game controls realistic, so he started researching state-of-the-art propulsion systems. He quickly came to understand a limitation of existing ion thrusters he thought could be improved upon within the coming centuries and (spoiler alert) possibly sooner: If a mission requires more thrust, its thruster needs to be heavier. But crucially, “there’s a certain […]