ProDigits can be controlled two ways: by myoelectric sensors that register muscle signals from the palm or the remnant finger, or by a pressure sensitive switch from a force resistive sensor. The degree of functionality they give back to people is truly incredible, as you can see in the video below (patient demonstrations start at 1:18).

We at Gizmodo have been known to have a soft spot for all things cybernetic, but it's especially cool and gratifying to see technology used to help people get their normal lives back. [Touch Bionics via Slashgear]

The use of a high-speed digital signal processor allows the provision of "intelligent information" to the implant (and the nerve cells) by using tuneable software to approximate the information processing normally carried out by the healthy retina. The entire process enables patients to optimize their visual perception during the learning phase. Indeed, using the patient's feedback on perception as an input for the tuning of The Pocket Processor is the unique, patent-protected feature of the System and constitutes the 'learning' capability of the Learning Retinal Implant System.

The next logical step is, of course, enhancing vision beyond what we're born with. When these things become optional for people with healthy vision, you'll know we're really living in the future. [IMI Devices]

Some body modders, such as Jesse Jarrell and Steve Haworth, have experimented with the idea, putting rare earth magnets in their fingertips. Their initial idea was to use the magnets to help them carry stuff, but it turns out that using a magnet in your hand to carry things around kills the skin between the magnet and the object. Not good!

Instead, it acts as an extra sense that lets you know when electricity is around.

According to Huffman, the magnet works by moving very slightly, or with a noticeable oscillation, in response to EM fields. This stimulates the somatosensory receptors in the fingertip, the same nerves that are responsible for perceiving pressure, temperature and pain. Huffman and other recipients found they could locate electric stovetops and motors, and pick out live electrical cables. Appliance cords in the United States give off a 60-Hz field, a sensation with which Huffman has become intimately familiar. "It is a light, rapid buzz," he says.

It's pretty awesome, really. It's a way to make your body aware of an invisible energy that you were completely unaware of before. And if that's not what body hacking is all about, then what is? [Wired]

This week, Gizmodo is exploring the enhanced human future in a segment we call This Cyborg Life. It's about what happens when we treat our body less as a sacred object and more as what it is: Nature's ultimate machine.

The USB drive isn't permanently fused to his finger, unfortunately. Instead, it's inside a rubber tip that he fits onto the nub of his finger. Eventually, however, he's hoping to upgrade it to a more truly bionic upgrade. Until then, he still gets to carry around a Linux distribution in the tip of his finger, and you don't. Maybe someday, friends.

First Place—Doc Brown
Second Place—Shaun Legacy
Third Place— Jon McGrath

Send your best entries to me at contests@gizmodo.com with Bionic Upgrades in the subject line. Save your files as JPGs or GIFs, and use a FirstnameLastname.jpg naming convention using whatever name you want to be credited with. Send your work to me by next Tuesday morning, and I'll pick three top winners and show off the rest of the best in our Gallery of Champions. Get to it!

Mullins has been instrumental in changing the public perception of prosthetics. After setting multiple world records at the 1996 Paralympic games, she has used her modeling, athletic and film careers to end the idea that prosthetics are a mark of disability. Instead, she's shown the world that bionic limbs can enable some amazing things. As a guy who's barely 5'8" on a good day, listening to Mullins talk about how easy and fun it is to change her height on a whim does sound like a pretty incredible ability to have.

TEDMED annually explores a wide range of issues in health care. Topics this year range from ethical questions in the face of medical advancement to the theoretical capabilities of medicine. The fifth TEDMED conference will be held October 27-30 in San Diego. Be sure to keep an eye on the conference come fall. [TEDMED, image via Women's Sports Foundation]

Tonka got in a tussle with a local dog, who bit off one of her legs. Unable to walk around properly, rescuers had the idea to strap the wheels from a Tonka truck to her underside, turning her into the fastest tortoise around.

Local resident John O'Dea, 35, has now adopted Tonka and said she loved nothing better than roaming in the vegetable patch and going for ‘walks'.

Surfer John said: ‘She is doing really well and loves roaming around the vegetable garden on her shiny new wheels.

‘She has a particular fondness for tomatoes.

‘I take her for ‘walks' regularly around my neighbourhood, I think she likes the speed but I do get a few funny looks.

Man, that hare doesn't stand a chance now. [Daily Mail via Neatorama]

Sure, it's an infomercial about this company called Festo, but it's impressive nonetheless. Like other tech companies, they are getting its inspiration from nature to create new robotic concepts, working relentlessly to create the robots that will kill us all one day. Good. [Geeks Are Sexy]

The eye, known as Argus II, is made by American company Second Sight. It works by using a camera and video processor mounted on sunglasses to send captured images to a tiny receiver placed on the outside of a patient's eye.

73-year-old Ron lost his site in his 40s thanks to retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited disorder that causes progressive peripheral vision loss. He is one of 18 patients across the world taking part in Second Sight's experiment.

"They said let their be light, there was light. For 30 years I've seen absolutely nothing at all, it's all been black. But now light is coming through," he told the BBC.

"It's a great privilege and an honor, I think, to be able to take part in an experiment such as this - hoping that the outcome is going to be able to bring sight to people, like myself, that were completely blind." [BBC via Boingboing]

He'd been hanging his arm out the car window when his friend exited a parking lot a little too close to a wooden gatepost. A quick scrape and the arm "was amputated in a second," the 19-year-old British college student told the Telegraph UK. "It was very nasty." His friend applied a tourniquet and saved Evan's life. (Side note: Glad he's still your friend Evan—I'm not sure I could be as forgiving.)

Later on, Evan's big brother called up Touch Bionics, based in Scotland, and they ended up fitting the kid with the $60,000 arm you see in the video above, capable of "peeling a potato, catching a ball, holding a bottle of water." In the past year, Touch has given arms to a number of people including soldiers wounded in combat. Evan's fitting happened in February of last year.

"It's so sensitive I can grip a bottle of water or a paper cup without crushing it, and even swing a racket. All I have to so is imagine picking something up or gripping it and the fingers and thumb move automatically," he told the Telegraph. [Telegraph UK via Geekologie]

These quantum dots, as they're referred to, would theoretically fluoresce when hit by light packets, and serve as a light amplifier for retinal images. The patent says early tests on rats have been successful, as they showed improved vision over the control group. The upside is that this solution requires no power source, and can target specific areas of the retina, making it more of a reality than bionic eyes or begging for an eye cam. [Patent via New Scientist via Oh Gizmo!]

[G4TV via Fleshbot]

Conventional prosthetic arms do not have the strength of their flesh-and-blood counterparts, the reason being the batteries. In order to lift comparable weights, a prosthetic arm would need a massive battery, too large for the prosthesis itself. So Goldfarb started thinking about other ways to power the artificial limbs, and came up with the idea of using the monopropellant rocket motor system that the space shuttle uses to maneuver in space.

The first attempt used a "cold gas", compressed nitrogen, which allowed the researchers to test for control, leakage and noise of the arm, which consists of a series of valves and belts made out of a monofilament usually used in aircraft parts. Once fine-tuned, the engineers reworked the arm to operate on "hot gas," or steam that is heated to 450 Farenheit.

The arm even "sweats" when it is in use. In order not to burn the wearer, the steam is vented through a porous cover, where it condenses and turns into water droplets—about the same amount as the sweat from a person's arm on a hot day.

Last month, the engineers got the second prototype working properly, and the arm, which is part of a $30 million project funded by DARPA's Revolutionizing Prosthetics program, should make it to the second stage of development. But Goldfarb is not worried, should DARPA pull out. "We have made so much progress and gotten such positive feedback from the research community that I'm certain we'll be able to keep going," he says. [Exploration]

Much like our own muscle tissue, the robo muscles are made of woven parts that expand and contract (powered by air pressure here). Designing these of muscles in such a manner allows a control of range and motion and strength—making the Shadow Hand excellent at delicate tasks like picking up coins and eggs. Touch sensors also function as a virtual skin for even greater sensitivity and versatility.

With all the bionic limbs floating around, we need to get something this advanced for human use, ASAP. Or we should redirect such resources to produce fat free pork rinds. Whichever works for me.
[shadow via gizmowatch]

Twenty medics battled to save Mr Peng's life after the smash, grafting skin from his face onto his torso. Despite his miraculous recovery, however, the amputee was left bedridden - until late last year, when Mr Peng started to work on his upper body strength in order to carry out simple tasks such as washing his face and cleaning his teeth.

In order to get him up and about, the eggheads at the China Rehabilitation Research Center in Beijing came up with the idea of the cup-shaped trunk and attached legs. And, with the aid of a resized walking frame and his new Adidas trainers, Mr Peng is learning how to walk again.[Metro]

In any case, these Bionic Gloves also have better wrist support, better grip strength, and strategically placed grip pads. Not a bad buy if you're a farmer. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Bionic Gloves via Book of Joe via Sci Fi Tech]

Three-legged tortoise gets a wheel [Tha B. Boing]