Power knee

Ossur, a global supplier of prosthetic and orthopedic devices, has come up with Power Knee, the first powered prosthesis for lower-limb amputees. Honoured by the Popular Science magazine with a ‘Best of What’s New Award’, this is hailed as the next step in bionic technology. The artificially intelligent gear predicts and responds to changes in terrain and its inclination. It restores gait dynamics and allows its user to cover greater distances while using less energy. Replacing true muscle activity, it can bend and straighten the leg at the knee and help its users ascend stairs easily.

Post-focus photo

Shoot a pic now, focus later. To avoid blurry snaps, a digital camera has been designed by the researchers at Stanford University that refocuses photos after being taken. The technicians have figured out how to adjust the light rays after they have reached the camera. They inserted a sheet of 90,000 lenses, each just 125 micrometres across, between the camera’s main lens and the image sensor. The angle of the light rays that strike each microlens is recorded, as well as the amount of light arriving along each ray. A software reconstructs these values for each microlens to transform it to a properly-focused image.