back to article Fear a terrifying killer robot revolution? GET A GRIP: Boffins invent cyborg hand for humans

A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a powered glove equipped with two robotic fingers that is designed to augment the puny flesh and bone accouterments that adorn our human hands. MIT robot fingers Who wants five fingers when you can have seven? Credit: Melanie Gonick/MIT The glove has sensors …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Some implications...

    Rude hand gestures will get very creative...

    The need to compose keyboard music for 2.8 hands...

    Going to the bathroom could get interesting...

    Ditto for hand jobs...

    Nose-picking etiquette will have to be debated...

    No more excuses for weak guitar chords...

    Which of her fingers do I put the ring on again?

  2. Gene Cash Silver badge
    FAIL

    wearable robots

    Can everyone jump on the "wearable" bandwagon now please? Are we missing anyone? Is that everybody?

    1. solo
      Terminator

      Re: wearable robots

      It seems the hand is not autonomous yet.. but the fingers seem stronger than the wearer's.. and the sky seems darker .. a storm is coming

      1. MrT

        B-E-A-utiful...

        ... "I'm free on the seventh at seven."

        Sir, I wish to complain about the Fitzall Universal Gloves you sold me, as they no longer fit like a glove...

    2. John Bailey

      Re: wearable robots

      "Can everyone jump on the "wearable" bandwagon now please? Are we missing anyone? Is that everybody?"

      No.. We are still waiting on the commentoads who smugly reject anything new until it becomes commonplace. But I expect they will as usual, sidle in, and try to make out they were here all along.

      1. Fink-Nottle

        Wowsers!

        > smugly reject anything new

        What's new about a mechanical arm that pops out of a hat? Inspector Gadget has had one for years.

  3. Chris G

    Dagnostic Apraxia

    A new meaning for alien hand syndrome, the handy jar opening thing/s on your wrist/s quietly waiting to remove your fleshy, inefficient carcase from the New Machine Order coming to you courtesy of the IoT /

  4. Graham Marsden
    Alert

    Just be careful...

    ... A certain (ahem) "accident" that Howard Wolowitz suffered comes (painfully!) to mind..

  5. Mage Silver badge
    Alien

    Souds good

    But I wouldn't want it connected to the Internet ...

    Or would I if my 'friend' had one and we connected via peer to peer VPN.

    So what other exp-skeleton body enhancements can we think of?

    Both intuitively operated by existing body bits and perhaps by a remote 'friend'?

    Why stop at a pair of fingers, what about a 3rd (or extra pair) of Arm(s) or Leg(s)?

    These existing body parts control?

    Toes:

    Neck:

    Eyebrows:

    Tummy in/out:

    There are lot of possibilities cheaper than an entire remote avatar mimicking your movements.

    1. Rol

      Re: Souds good

      Two heads!

      Now that would improve the morning, as my extra head could wake me up at about ten, in time for morning break and not at nine in time for the departmental meeting.

      "Hey Zaphod, did you say anything stupid while I was sleeping through that meeting?"

      "NO, of course not, I vehemently agreed with everything the boss said"

      "So you did say something stupid"

      1. MD Rackham

        Re: Souds good

        I can't decide if I want the Rosie Greer second head, or the Ray Milland model.

  6. Christoph

    Seven fingers?

    There's an Inigo Montoya here to see you.

  7. Don Jefe

    The Future Is Now

    It looks like the person in the first picture is actually being strangled by the hand. I thought she was demonstrating a safety mechanism, but it was just her black shirt. I was excited because I though I had found someone who thought like me. You know, before anybody is bringing one of those things in the office I want to see if it can strangle its wearer.

    Boring safety issues aside, why the fuck would you want a super strong robotic hand that can fold up? Ignoring the fact that a glove is, quite possibly, the easiest fucking thing in the world to carry, it's a super strong robotic hand! Rock that bitch, Everywhere. I would Bedazzle mine.

    I can think of no situation where donning robotic hand at the moment of need has value. If the glove would be useful in that situation it would have been just as useful if you already had it on. I can guaranfuckingtee airport security is going to have some questions. If you've got the glove on, it's a medical device. If it's in your bag you're going to have a really hard time explaining why you've got a robotic hand in your bag. 'What? I have neither a 5000 degree furnace, or a volcano, at home asshole, do you? This hand contains the last of the Cyberdyne Systems processors which will destroy you and all your loved ones if I don't dispose of it in molten steel, or Mt. Doom. So unless you want everybody to die after extremely short lives in a dystopian future of Lovecraftian proportions, I'm taking the hand on the plane' (The hand will certainly be shock resistant, unlike your body when 32 TSA agents taze you simultaneously).

    The only time I took it off would be to issue a formal challenge. I feel certain ready for market versions of this will come in a variety of colors, which is a requisite in a challenge glove. It has to be white you know.

  8. btrower

    I fear robot rebellion

    Great; strangled by your own hands.

    1. Montreal Sean

      Re: I fear robot rebellion

      @btrower: Just talk to Ash, he knows what to do.

      1. Evil Auditor Silver badge

        Re: I fear robot rebellion

        @Montreal Sean

        So, on one hand I wear a robo-hand and in the other carry a cattle prod to defeat it whenever need be?

  9. Terry Cloth
    Joke

    ``Now you can ... fight off androids''

    Hello, MIT? This is Apple---I'll take your entire output until further notice.

  10. g00se
    Thumb Up

    Denholm would like it

    Spacestar ordering success story number three.

    My tattoo got infected, so they've had to cut off my arm! I am getting a robot hand!

  11. VinceH
    Terminator

    Optional

    "At the moment the robot fingers are designed to merely mimic the gripping style of the user with the same force as exerted by fleshy fingers. But in the future the team wants to add variable force to the mechanical digits and shrink the unit into something everyone could wear to make it easier to crush your enemies' skulls on a day-to-day basis."

    FTFY!

    1. Chris G

      Re: Optional

      In addition to skull crushing power, a reasonably offensive laser mounted in one finger and an IR TV controller in the other would make it interesting.

  12. Mark 85

    I'm not sure that real world application will be for everyone. Military use maybe but more for those who have lost fingers or suffered hand trauma. I can see that it might also lead to better prosthetics for those who have lost a hand/arm. The biggest problem will be weight. No matter how small the electronics and motive elements get, the batteries are still the problem.

  13. Gartal

    A good idea but.....

    I can see this a s being useful for people with weird diseases like Myasthenia Gravis or Heckington's Plookatrope, and of course all of those whose arthritis makes opening a jar of vegemite a problem.

    The question I have though is a mechanical one. One's bone density tends to be fairly uniform. As one ages and deteriorates and osteoporosis takes its toll, the phalanges weaken but so to the radius and ulna not to mention the seven bones in the wrist. I wonder wether adding an angle of moment greater than what the original design spec called for won't lead to heavy bruising of the forearm and ultimately rather strange breaks of the radius and ulna.

  14. Evil Auditor Silver badge
    Devil

    How disappointing!

    There was me, expecting something like Thing T. Thing...

  15. Alister

    Go go Gadget fingers!

    1. Steven Raith

      "Go go Gadget fingers!"

      ....and that was number 452 out of 999 innapropriate things to say to a first date.

      Number 454: "I've got three bags of quicklime and a shovel in the car, if the waiter takes too long with your order. Just sayin' like."

      Steven 'The Love Guru' R.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        #381: "If you're even half as good as your sister..."

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Really? Only me?

    I'm the only one who sees a young Japanese woman gazing at dual dildos attached to her wrist... Ok, then.

  17. Martin Budden Silver badge

    power supply

    They want to make it fold away into a small wrist-worn container, which sounds nice. But you'll still need to either wear a big heavy backpack for the power supply, or plug into the mains every time you want to use it.

    Power supply is always the biggest issue with personal robots.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like