Infosthetics posted this post originally. The Videos show a variety of dresses by the designer Hussein Chalayan. There are two major themes with these dresses. One is the color changing, video screen dress. The dress is made with LED's sewn into the fabric, most likely this is Phillip's Lumalive fabric. The second theme is shape changing (and occasionally disappearing), dresses (wait until the end of the video). These are pretty neat, too. According to infosthetics, the dresses are powered by many small motors and a hidden battery pack.

Peter Homer won the $200,000 prize for developing a new glove design for NASA. Mr Homer had several years of engineering experience in the aerospace field before entering the competition. His new glove design featured an improved the finger dexterity and joint design. The prize money was awarded for a glove design that was both better than the current NASA design and also better than the other competitors. In this competition, the Astronaut Glove Challenge, there were two other entrants. The Astronaut Glove Challenge was part of a larger series of competitions that is under the banner of the 'Centennial Challenges' program from NASA which awards teams pursuing certain improvements in technology.

NASA is testing some new improved space suits. The new suits are expected to be lighter and smaller than current suits. The also sport a science fiction looking porthole. The picture is of a suit from ILC Dover that looks very much like the one pictured by the AP in the news article.

Using a process from microchip manufacturing two guys have produced a microscale chainmail fabric. The links in the chain are about 500 microns across. The fabric has the pliability of nylon. Because the 'chainmail' was constructed from a conductive material it can be used to embed sensors or heated elements into clothing.

Panasonic has developed a prototype exoskeleton that uses compressed air to help the wearer move limbs. The device is designed to help people with partial paralysis regain use of a bad limb. It functions by using sensors on the elbow and wrist that control eight compressed air 'muscles'. A picture is available at Cnet

Scientists have been studying a beetle whose scales are, 'just 5 microns thick that act as three-dimensional photonic solids—materials that manipulate light. Internally the scales are "a random network of interconnecting cuticular filaments," the article says. It's the randomness that does the job, apparently. Those filaments (in conjunction with the air gaps between them, says a good summary on Scientific American's web site today) bounce light around just right to have whiteness and brightness comparable to human baby teeth and treated paper.' (from Wired News)

The Land Warrior system post got me interested in the concept of exoskeletons. Primarily I was wondering about how nanomachines are being used in the creation of human performance augmentation systems. I realize that nanomachines for human performance augmentation are not the same as exoskeletons, but they share the same goals. The basic aim of human performance augmentation and exoskeletons is to improve the strength, agility, perception, and speed of a person. Most of the research currently being done on exoskeleton type systems has been sparked by a grant from DARPA for the Land Warrior System (aka Future Warrior System). As such most of the work has military implications. Some people may be familiar with the image of the projected Future Warrior System future of a US soldier pictured to the left. I will auspiciously avoid communication, perception, gps location, and weapons systems in this article. Even avoiding some key topics, this is a huge topic covering many aspects of biology, kineseology, materials science, computing, robotics, and more. I will try to be brief.

The United States Army has been developing a high-tech system for facilitating communications between infantry men and improving their over-all effectiveness. The system includes GPS tracking technology, wearable computers, new input devices (that can be mounted on a weapon), digital optics, and laser range finding devices. While not necessarily designed for space, there are tremendous opportunities for combing some of these existing technologies to improve everyone’s over-all space experience. Many of these technologies could be used for non-military purposes.

The United States Army has been developing a high-tech system for facilitating communications between infantry men and improving their over-all effectiveness. The system includes GPS tracking technology, wearable computers, new input devices (that can be mounted on a weapon), digital optics, and laser range finding devices. While not necessarily designed for space, there are tremendous opportunities for combing some of these existing technologies to improve everyone’s over-all space experience. Many of these technologies could be used for non-military purposes.

For the first time ever, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory have developed a material with a negative refractive index for visible light. Ames Laboratory senior physicist Costas Soukoulis, working with colleagues in Karlsruhe, Germany, designed a silver-based, mesh-like material that marks the latest advance in the rapidly evolving field of metamaterials, materials that could lead to a wide range of new applications as varied as ultrahigh-resolution imaging systems and cloaking devic