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Researchers at the University of Utah’s Bionic Engineering Lab have developed the most advanced bionic leg ever created which is super cool but unexcitingly named the ‘Utah Bionic Leg.’
The leg uses motors, processors, and advanced artificial intelligence (AI) that all work together to give amputees more power to walk, stand-up, sit-down, and ascend and descend stairs and ramps.
“If you walk faster, it will walk faster for you and give you more energy,” University of Utah mechanical engineering associate professor Tommaso Lenzi says.
“Or it adapts automatically to the height of the steps in a staircase. Or it can help you cross over obstacles.”
Basically, the extra power from the prosthesis makes these activities easier and less stressful for amputees, who normally need to over-use their upper body and intact leg to compensate for the lack of assistance from their prescribed prosthetics.
Our @LabBionic has developed the “Utah Bionic Leg,” the most advanced bionic leg ever created.
Now, we’ve forged a partnership with the worldwide leader in the prosthetics industry, @OttobockUK, to bring it to individuals with lower-limb amputations.https://t.co/C2MZSBiQnX
— University of Utah (@UUtah) October 7, 2022
And the Uni has just secured a new partnership with the largest prosthetics manufacturer in the world, Ottobock, to licence the technology behind the leg and bring it to individuals with lower-limb amputations.
Ottobock will fund a state-of-the-art motion analysis system that includes a force-sensing treadmill and force-sensing staircase, 3D motion-capture cameras, and other equipment to help analyse how the Utah Bionic Leg benefits users and to discover new ways to improve their tech (and in exchange they’ll get joint ownership for future technologies produced in the lab).
“We want to make sure the good ideas go from the lab to the market at soon as possible,” Lenzi said.
“What we’re trying to create here is a partnership that will enable us to work together on these kinds of problems by combining the best of academia with the best of industry.”
Global technology giant Macnica has made a strategic $500,000 investment to secure a 14% stake in Artificial Intelligence (AI) player iCetana.
The company says the funds will be used to accelerate its commercialisation activities and increasing global sales channels utilising Macnica’s very strong global distribution platform for iCetana’s motion intelligence software.
Macnica will also become the exclusive distributor of iCetana in Japan and Brazil as well as a preferred distributor in other territories.
“Macnica is a highly technical organisation and we are impressed with the iCetana solution to real-time video surveillance challenges,” Macnica executive officer and president of Clavis company Keisuke Ito said.
“We have worked over the past two years to develop opportunities in the Japanese market and observed strong engagement from a substantial number of large local operations.
“We see global potential for the product and this investment underscores our belief in the team to execute on their growth ambitions.”
The company has announced a step-change in its 12CQ chip development with quantum information detected in its qubit material at room temperature using CMOS technology.
CMOS is a widely used semiconductor technology for building the chips found in most modern-day devices and integrating Archer’s 12CQ qubit material with the technology could provide a potential pathway for the development of practical quantum-enabled mobile devices.
“The significance of the work to realise a CMOS chip that successfully detects the quantum spin states in our qubit material at room temperature cannot be understated and represents a step-change technological achievement in advancing Archer’s 12CQ quantum chip development,” CEO Dr Mohammad Choucair said.
“A key advantage of the new CMOS chip is that the componentry is made using standard and commercially available semiconductor fabrication technology.
“This achievement builds on the considerable progress Archer has made this year in the design and development of the 12CQ chip, which all link to the future operation of the technology.”
Adveritas recently invested in its sales and marketing capabilities and it’s paying off – with annualised revenue up 78% for the year-to-date at over $3 million.
The company say there’s increased global market awareness of its ad fraud prevention software TrafficGuard to clients across all four 4 quadrants – Google PPC, Mobile app download, Affiliate and Social.
And this revenue growth is underpinned by new customer contracts across both PPC and mobile/affiliate solutions along with upsells to existing clients.
Co-founder and CEO Mathew Ratty is confident that each quarter ahead will experience stronger growth, with the company planning to monetise over 4,500 customers using its Freemium product.
“Our self-serve product has over 4,500 customers signed to the Freemium model and, through a marketing led approach, we are confident that not only will we grow the amount of Freemium users on the platform but also convert a large number of those to paying clients,” he said.
“With SME and mid-market representing a large prospective cohort of millions of businesses, it has become a key priority for the company to enable rapid growth through the high margin low touch point product.”
The software-as-a-service player has nabbed a three-year contract extension for its Knowledge Management solution, KnowledgeIQ, with ANZ.
The value of the contract over the three years is expected to exceed $5 million, plus ANZ has committed to a series of upgrades to the latest release of the software.
“We are seeing more clients in government agencies and financial services, becoming increasingly focused on employee and customer engagement,” MD John Thompson says.
“Our solutions support these initiatives by enabling employees and customers to find relevant information more quickly, either through call centres or through digital channels such as websites and chatbots.
“KnowledgeIQ enables organisations to deliver consistent and accurate information by being a single source of truth.”
At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Adveritas is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.
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