The story is actually a bit more complicated than that. Doctors’ initial advice was to give up—his amputation was so close to the shoulder that most modern prostheses wouldn’t have functioned properly. Lesek traveled to Melbourne (he lives in Tasmania) to be fitted with a high-end German unit which, after a year of patchy performance, he abandoned.

Having heard about a metal ‘n’ bone-implantation technique called osseointegration, Lesek refocused his efforts on the pricey foreign technique. A trip to Sweden and $80,000 AUD (about $50,000 USD) netted him a mechanical “bolt” that provides an approximation of shoulder function—enough to control basic motions on a prosthesis. Existing bolt-compatible units didn’t suit his specific work needs or price range, so he decided to start designing and constructing his own robo-arms.

His homebuilt limbs are pretty basic ones (their capabilities end at pointing and basic movements) but he’s now working with the University of Tasmania to design a computer—and possibly brain—controlled prosthesis. This kind of tech is moving fast at the moment, but how far he gets with his mind-melded arm remains to be seen. For now, though, he’s pretty much the coolest hobbyist in the world. [The Mercury]

The BCI system – developed, used and modified by USF psychology professor Emanuel Donchin and colleagues – captures P-300 brain wave responses and converts them to actions. Donchin and colleagues harnessed the P-300 brain signal to allow the user to “type” on a virtual keyboard by thinking with the P-300 response serving as the virtual “finger” for patients who cannot move, such as those with locked-in syndrome or those with Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS). Researchers in the USF Department of Mechanical Engineering’s Centre for Rehabilitation Engineering and Technology, in collaboration with the Cognitive Psychophysiology Laboratory in the Department of Psychology, modified the BCI further to fit a specific WMRA requirement.

Early testing has been positive—users needn’t move a muscle in order to operate the arm. And yes, I can totally see Stephen Hawking rolling with one of these—doling out high-fives and choking out other physicists. [USF News via Medgadget via Coolest Gadgets]

Indeed, his prosthesis concept manages to be both. The Corian-plated limb features two dome joints that offer a wider range of motion than a real arm while still managing, at least in my eyes, to be as much an accessory as it is a medical device.

Imagine if this arm had been covered in a pseudo-flesh toned rubber. Your brain would acknowledge the piece as something that didn’t fit. Maybe because this arm isn’t trying to look real, my brain accepts it as part of the image with ease.

What do you see? [PlayMeDesign via Engadget]

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 $US60,000 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]

In the second part Kamen talks about how the arm’s control systems were developed, simplifying an 18-degrees of freedom movement space so that it could be controlled almost subconsciously by the user.
Part three is where Kamen talks about his not-for profit scheme to get young people interested in science through robots: “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology” (FIRST); “like sports, nobody ever walks around saying ‘I wanna be second’.”

Interesting stuff, as I said, and the Luke arm seems to have a pretty astounding future ahead of it. I can’t help thinking I would have asked a few more direct questions though. Is the arm dexterous enough for it to let a wearer/user use the toilet? When the Luke arm gets to that level of sophistication—and, more importantly, when its developer/users trust it enough to do intimate tasks like that with it—that’s the point at which I reckon the arm will stop being a science-technology showpiece and really make a difference in people’s lives. Over to you in the comments. [Kara.AllthingsD]