The Best Innovations of 2019
Time magazine recently published its annual list of the 100 best i nventions of 2019. The list includes some noteworthy inventions in the ‘healthcare’ and ‘accessibility’ fields, such as tele-health and wearable assistive devices, for example:
Livio AI, a ‘talking hearing aid’ for the hearing-impaired. In addition to amplifying sounds and toning down background noise, the Livio AI can stream music, verbally answer questions like a smart assistant, translate conversations from another language in real time, automatically detect a fall and alert emergency contacts, measure physical activity, and track how often the wearer talks to others during the day.
MyEye 2, also described as ‘talking glasses’ for people with visual impairments. The A.I.-powered device, which attaches to glasses, can identify faces and money, and read out text and information from bar codes. Available in 48 countries, it’s even been used in elections to help visually-impaired people cast their ballots.
Nerivio, a drug-free wearable device that ‘zaps’ migraines by electrically-stimulating neural pathways to reduce pain signals.
TytoHome, a handheld tele-health device that allows doctors to remotely measure and monitor a patient’s vital signs, and examine their lungs, ears, skin and throat with special adapters.
Check out Time’s article for more details on these and other interesting innovations.
In related news, Scientific American also recently shared its round-up of the top 10 emerging technologies of 2019, including biodegradable plastics, social robots, tiny ‘meta-lenses’ for miniature optical devices, DNA data storage, intrinsically-disordered proteins as new therapeutic targets, and collaborative telepresence technologies — more details here.
Speaking of emerging tech, the ‘DNA of Things’ is also a thing now: researchers have developed a way to encode the design blueprint or ‘synthetic DNA’ into a plastic rabbit. Then, they took a small piece from the original rabbit and, using a 3D printer, cloned identical rabbits from its synthetic DNA.
Another fascinating development, potentially paving the way to the use of synthetic DNA in a wide range of applications!
About the author:
Aamer Fattah is a scientist, innovation leader and deep tech expert.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any agency, organization, employer or company.
