“Bionic Girl” Debuts New Wireless Hands That Even Work When Detached From the Main Prosthetic

I wonder if data going into the hands is also wireless when they’re attached. Seems like a rather critical set of functions to go with wireless instead of a hard connection. Maybe wireless fidelity has improved enough that concerns about things like interference aren’t as big as they used to be.
- There's one other advantage to wireless here: a bionic prosthetic is moving a lot, and that's not great for wire harnesses or connectors. Going wireless potentially allows for greater range of movement (or at least removes the engineering challenge of making it durable long term).
  
  That would be a more interesting line of questioning than all the viral stuff about "mind control" and whatnot.
  It may just be cheaper to slap a wireless connection in there than to engineer routing cables through a fully mobile articulation AND keep the whole thing water resistant. I bet whatever the real answer there it's fascinating.
  I wish that worked better than Deus Ex collabs and morning show interviews, but given how often I've seen this pop up the last couple of weeks it clearly is not.
- I wonder if they're banking on wireless chips lasting longer than physical ports. Though making them wireless also means batteries and charging ports, two parts notorious for failing.
  
  You could always do both and fall back on external power when the battery dies. Thats how laptops often do it.
- I build and fit orthotics and prosthetics.....this is mainly just a marketing gimmick. The myoelectric sensors that feed the data to the terminal device are built into the socket of the prosthetic. There's no real reason to wear the socket without the hand, and you can't operate the hand without the socket.
  The hard connections from the end of the socket and the hand are very durable, and they typically don't really have any issues with wear. I don't think fidelity is a big issue because there's not a ton of information being transferred, the myoelectric sensors haven't really changed a bunch in the last 40 years and the amount of information being sent is minimal.
  The biggest downside I foresee is that if you had different terminal devices, you're probably going to have to pair them to the socket whenever you want to switch. When the traditional hard connection is just plug and play. That and you are just adding extra things to break in devices that are built to take a beating.
- I can see a bunch of geeky engineers in the planning meeting. "Wouldn't it be cool if it could detach and still work. Think of how she could mess with people."
  
  This 100% accurate! Recreating the Addams Family scenes must have been part of the commissioning process.

I wounded if working people will be able to afford this... Given the amount of amputee veterans who lost limbs and veteran suicide rate...me thinks not... But sure it seems pretty nifty...just swell
- It's also a massive risk when even the advanced ones have a high rejection rate of around 44% that's never talked about, and don't have nearly as much fine control as the media makes them out to be on top of being uncomfortably heavy for some people. While some do like them, a lot wind up preferring simpler ones or none at all.
  
  Those articles hit close to home as someone hard of hearing. So much of disability activism is trying to get able people to respect what is comfortable for us to do rather than what is comfortable for able bystanders to see us do.
  Like assistive devices are awesome, but they exist for the people they are used by. We consistently want comfortable independent function without being othered for it. Some will prefer subtle devices, others will ask for a fully controllable rgb option on devices that could be hidden easily.
- Yes they would, in theory, because those prosthetics she's wearing were NHS-funded. I can see the waitlist to get ones like those being pretty fucking long though but hey, what NHS waitlist is not pretty fuck long these days anyway

Great, now my hands can get hacked.
- Or hack them yourself and become a keyboard and mouse gaming god
- Or become a dead weight, when the manufacturer stops supporting it

We're this much closer to The Addams Family
- I want to see a rocket fist

I bet if we all try we can remember the name Tilley Lockey because it’s a pretty badass name and arguably cooler than bionic girl

Off the main topic of the article here, but that was a roller coaster of thoughts for me with the Title and the link thumbnail-
Kinda looks like Drew Berrymore in the thumbnail, so “Bionic Girl Debuts…” oh cool, new movie—-wait, Drew lost her arms and now has prosthetics? Opened the article…..Ohhh…
- I had the same serious of thoughts, but also thought it said "blonde girl" and so wasn't as excited for the movie.

You know what, wireless prosthetics could be useful even for those of us who have both hands.
We can basically go full General Grievous and do so many things at once
- Hold your own arm and reach things further away behind the dryer.
- 6 dudes at once!
  
  AT THE SAME TIME?
- Unfortunately the limitations there are probably in the brain not the limb. For example, can you competentely do two things at once with each of your hands?
  
  Any random individual? Maybe not. But one man bands exist and are completely reliant on this concept.
  
  Fair, but do you have to manipulate them at the same time? Most of the time we use our hands to hold something, or do very simple repetitive movements. This doesn't require much brain power to do, and is still very useful. For example, such arms could hold our bags, while our natural ones can do whatever else.
- So I don't need to cut off an arm for an upgrade?
  
  Yay!

Is this the same girl we’ve been seen pictures of since she was a little kid? She’s probably so used to it by now it’s second nature. Though at first I thought it was Drew Barrymore from the thumbnail

All fun and games til her arm gets hacked lol
- Damn, if she has any tech-savvy siblings, this would introduce a whole new level of "why are you hitting yourself"

Jenny Silverhand

That's unfair 😡

The flesh is weak.
Now with 100% more grip strength.

!unbgbbiivchidctiicbg@lemmy.world
- For real. Not every stupid subreddit needs a Lemmy clone. Keep that eighth grade humor trash back where it belongs.

Wild man. I was a little put off on how the lady was cutting a tomato while wearing it (it's an embedded promo clip for the Hero Pro).
She was holding the knife backwards and it just looked really weird, but then I realized she might not have had hands her entire life so she never learned the proper way to do it.
- That's probably just to compensate for grip strength or range of motion with the knife.
  By backwards do you mean point near the elbow? If so you can get more leverage that way.