Bing. The WHILL turns any wheelchair into an electric vehicle. The WHILL on display at the Tokyo Motor Show (Photo: Gizmag) Image Gallery (7 images) Wheelchair users with full use of their arms generally don't need electric wheelchairs ... but sometimes, especially if those users have long distances to cover, it sure would be nice to have one. Instead of going out and buying themselves a full electric wheelchair, however, those people may soon have the option of using a WHILL.
Recently spotted by Gizmag staff at the Tokyo Motor Show, the prototype device clamps onto the wheels of an existing manual wheelchair, temporarily providing it with electric drive. View all The WHILL incorporates two circular "hubs" (for lack of a better word) that attach to the outside center of both of the wheelchair's wheels. Each of the hubs contains a separate 24-volt motor, powered by a lithium-ion battery pack.
WHILL the company, which is based in Japan, is now looking for wheelchair users to help field test the device. About the Author Post a CommentRelated Articles. GE and Intel to the Old and Infirm: Stay Home! GE and Intel want to keep sick people at home and out of the hospital. The two companies have announced a new health care venture to allow people with chronic diseases and other health troubles to use remote monitoring rather than visiting the doctor. The joint venture will develop gadgets, like the Intel Health Guide, so patients can monitor their blood pressure and manage their health from home. "Controlling health care costs while bringing quality care to an increasingly aging population is one of the largest global challenges we face today," said GE Chairman of the Board and CEO Jeff Immelt in announcing the new venture.
Whether there's a market for futuristic at-home health care, however, is another story. He adds: "An old person is a cash cow for doctors when they're in the hospital. The venture is expected to begin operating in the greater Sacramento area by the end of the year, and be headed by Intel's Louis Burns. GE, Intel to Form New Healthcare Joint Venture. GE and Intel Joint Venture Announcement Webcast Join Louis Burns, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Digital Health Group, and Omar Ishrak, Senior Vice President of GE and President and CEO of GE Healthcare Systems, to learn more about how GE and Intel are joining together to promote healthy, independent living at home and in independent/assisted living communities around the world.
Company to Focus on Telehealth and Independent Living in Effort to Tackle Increasing Global Burden of Chronic Disease and Age-Related Conditions SANTA CLARA, Calif. and FAIRFIELD, Conn., Aug. 2, 2010 – GE (NYSE: GE) and Intel Corporation have announced the entry into a definitive agreement to form a 50/50 joint venture to create a new healthcare company focused on telehealth and independent living. The new company will be formed by combining assets of GE Healthcare's Home Health division and Intel's Digital Health Group, and will be owned equally by GE and Intel. Products and Services. AFrame Digital | Secure, Wireless Health Monitoring. To Solve Our Health-Care Crisis, Home Treatment Needs A Makeover | Co. Design. Chronic disease is society's biggest health-care challenge. Even if we do a good job preventing disease by helping people live healthier lives, it's inevitable that for at least the foreseeable future, conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and depression will be our society's most substantial health-related issues.
The term "chronic" is used to describe conditions that are long lasting, so it shouldn't come as any surprise that they are incredibly expensive, both financially and in terms of quality of life. (See the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Department of Health & Human Services for some striking statistics.) We must design home-care tech that integrates into people's lives. A big change to the way we help people live with these conditions could go a long way toward improving the effectiveness of our health-care system, reducing costs and improving access for everyone. Chronic-disease care happens where people live their lives. Strategies for managing chronic disease. GlowCaps. About GlowCaps. Improving Chronic Illness Care. Meet Cody: Your Future Non-Terrifying Health-Care Helper Robot.
The other day we covered two home-care/health-care robots that may arrive soonish, though we noted their utility was slightly limited by a lack of hands. Well, Georgia Tech has stepped in with a vision of this sort of bot's future: With arms. Georgia Tech is actually working on the cutting edge of these non-android domestic or health-care machines as part of its Healthcare Robotics effort, and this particular device, dubbed Cody, would seem to be a genuine glimpse of the near future.
Like the two previous machines, Cody's a tall, slender wheeled device--about the right height to interact with humans and, therefore, all the furniture and gizmos that you find around a typical room environment. And whereas Honda's Asimo machine has been built on years of research into human-like two-legged locomotion, Cody's design neatly side-steps all that complexity (which requires lots of computing power as well as large electrical demands) by going down the four-wheel, stable-platform route.