ITAP, short for Intraosseous Transcutaneous Amputation Prosthesis, is a type of prosthetic that plugs right into an amputee’s bone. The RNOH and Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham recently finished trials where test participants said sensors in the ITAP improved their ability to know where their feet were. If cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, this futuristic new design for prosthetic limbs could emerge in American markets. Read the full story posted on Engadget.

Is it possible that we can someday build a computer that’s as powerful and as efficient as a brain?

Researchers at IBM recently unveiled a prototype of their human brain-inspired SyNapse chip. The new postage stamp-sized chip processes information using a network of just over one million “neurons” that communicate with one another using electrical spikes — as actual neurons do.

The chip uses the same basic components as today’s commercial chips, silicon transistors, but its transistors are configured to mimic the behavior of both neurons and the connections – synapses – between them.

Take a look at The Engineer Guy’s recent video in his latest series, Stories of Technological Failure. In this episode, Bill Hammack examines how the PicturePhone, introduced in 1964 by the Bell System, was not simply a consumer product that cost the company half a billion dollars, but an important technical achievement and innovative precursor to the Internet.