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Stroke is one disease that ranks top on the list of “most dangerous threats to human health”, but pity that there was no completely useful ways to cure or monitor the stroke, until these days when scientists from Mayo Clinic in Florida have developed the wearable head patch. The device is known as near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), and it will be attached to a patient’s forehead like a sticker to monitor the potential advent of another stroke through the simple act of shining light through the brow skin. It will measure blood oxygen levels in the brain, based on which a doctor can determine whether or not there’s a possibility of another stroke. Compared with other products that are usually big and heavy, the device is really smart for everyday use.

To most people, it’s really a very hard work to learn and understand sign languages, unless they can get some aid from the AcceleGlove. Made by the Institute for Disabilities Research and Training (IDRT) and funded by the National Science Foundation, the AcceleGlove is built with some sensors inside, which can help to turn your finger movements and other gestures into either text or speech. That means, as somebody wears the AcceleGlove and makes some gestures, the text displayed on the computer screen can then allow you to understand them without difficulty.

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Anytime, anywhere, watch what you’d like to watch, and that’s rightly the thing David Forbes’ Wearable LED TV would help you to do. The wearable LED display involves customized display boards, circuits, batteries, iPod and speakers, making it functional enough to display some videos even during your moving.  For more details and manufacturing costs, you can check out the story at Popsci.

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“FIT” armband developed by BodyMedia and IBM is a body-tracking gadget that not only knows how unhealthy you are, but can offer specific recommendations on how to reverse the trend. The armband is built with several different sensors, which can gather and analyze up to 5,000 individual data points every minute, to track everything from how active you are or how well you sleep. Once you log the data using IBM’s WebSphere Operational Decision Management (WODM), you’ll be sent with some valuable suggestions then.

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Electronic diabetic contact lens is a development collaborated by scientist from University of Washington and Microsoft Research, which is announce to ensure a wireless monitoring of the wearer’s blood sugar levels. The contact lens utilizes an enzyme-based electrochemical process sensitive to glucose, as the enzyme interacts with the tear fluid, certain measurements are then made and reported to the users.

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Wearable electronics are much closer to us, with the development of new electronic transistors made of cotton thread by researchers from the United States, Italy and France. To create these electromechanical transistors, scientists coated each cotton fiber with a mix of gold nanoparticles, and then a polymer and waterproof glycol coat following that. The resulting cotton yarn is a flexible textile semiconductor, thus clothes can double as computers or other electronics in the future.

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The fields in which LED is applied are far more than what we’ve ever expected, but it’s still quite surprising to see LED lights used in building an anti-aging mask. Can LED solve our skin problems? The answer from scientists is “yes”, and it is claimed that the “Magic LED Beauty Mask” will bring young and healthy skin back to you within 7 to 21 days by encouraging collagen and elastin regeneration as LED can “stimulate fibroblast activity”.

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The cold winter makes you suffer but you don’t know why? Well, according to scientific researches, the reason that people feel lack of energy in winter is because they lack enough bright white daylight. So in order to help people get fully energized in winter, the SEQINETIC “sun” glasses are created, offering bright light to beat the winter blues. But will that really work? Let those who have tried the glasses to tell us the answer then.

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What is iDigiTip? Basically it’s a digital accessory, but exactly it’s a magical gadget that offers you better experience of using your cellphones or touchscreen tablets. It works like an electronic pen worn on your finger, allowing you to control the small buttons on your cellphone with a more accurate action or handles your iPad without leaving any finger prints. More importantly, when wearing such a gadget to use your tablets or the public ATM machines, you can make sure that your finger prints will never get stolen.

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Usually we wear a watch to indicate the time, but sometimes we use a watch to remind us of important dates, meetings and so on too. If you’ve got many things that you shouldn’t have forgotten, possibly you need to try these Post-it Watches. Simply warp them around your wrist, and you’ll no longer miss your dates.

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Haptic is a navigation shoe especially designed for visually-impaired people. It is equipped with Bluetooth, GPS and a vibrating system, which work together to guide the blind people to their destinations.

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The ultra-compact wearable blood flow sensor is an invention of a research group from Kyushu and Tokyo Universities. Compared with common blood flow sensors that weigh 2-3 kg, this new device is much more compact and needs merely a 100 V power supply. It can be used to measure blood flow when the user is moving or just keeping still. Besides, the portable sensor can measure blood pressure as well.

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Men can hardly imagine how hard the pregnancy would be, until they could now experience a real-life fetus with this simulator designed by Kosaka Lab at the Kanagawa Institute. It is shaped like a jacket, with rubber balloons, vibrators, a water bag and other things to imitate the changes in the process of pregnancy. Unlike real pregnancies, however, the Mommy Tummy’s gestation period lasts merely two minutes, providing short but enough time for men to live as a mother-to-be.

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Hansub Lee’s Reading Finger is a clever design that would bring visually impaired people with a much simpler shopping experience. It is a combination of a finger device and a Bluetooth headset. As the finger pointer scans products, information like description, price, ingredients, nutrition etc will then be transformed into audio instructions for the users. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Ok, let’s firstly make it clear that this wearable pen may be just a design for fun… Because viewers will seldom find it practical even though this  pen claims to be an innovative item that allows safe using from water when you’re in bath. It is molded with plaster and there’s a real pen embedded inside. Simply wear it on your nose, wow, your nose now becomes a pen too. [Read the rest of this entry...]