Engineers have a world of creation at their fingertips: If they can dream it, they can build it (science permitting).
We recently published a list of 50 groundbreaking scientists who are changing the way we see the world, and several of the scientists who made that list specialize in tech and engineering.
Whether they're creating smart prosthetic limbs or innovative new medical devices, these 8 engineers are changing the landscape of the science industry.
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AND: The 50 best computer-science and engineering schools in America
Abe Davis is finding new ways to use video by using the vibrations in it to reconstruct audio.
No sound? No problem. Abe Davis and a team of researchers from MIT, Microsoft, and Adobe developed an algorithm that can extract audio from silent videos by analyzing the tiny vibrations of the objects as captured by a camera.
In one experiment, the team filmed earbuds playing a song with no discernible sound. The vibrations of the earbuds in the video was enough to recreate a song identifiable by the app Shazam. When the team tried the experiment using an everyday point-and-shoot camera, as opposed to an expensive high-speed version, the vibrations were still able to reconstruct the sound. Davis presented these findings in a paper for Siggraph, a computer-graphics conference, and gave a TED talk where he demoed the visual microphone. And there’s more to come: The latest research from Davis and fellow graduate student Katie Bouman will be out this summer.
Davis is a doctoral student at MIT.
Bertolt Meyer dispels stereotypes and stigmas surrounding physical disabilities.
Bertolt Meyer is best known for hosting "The Incredible Bionic Man," a documentary about the state of modern bionics, a field in which engineers apply the designs seen in biology to create more responsive prosthetics, artificial organs, and more. A social psychologist, he uses his own condition to relate to others and hopes advances in bionics will help dispel stereotypes and stigmas around physical disabilities.
Meyer wears a bionic hand called an i-limb ultra revolution on his left arm. Though he used a series of different prosthetics growing up (he was born without the lower part of his left arm), he transitioned to the i-limb in 2009 because it was far easier to use, move, and interact with the environment around him.
Meyer is a professor at the University of Leipz
Hugh Herr develops smart limbs for amputees, including himself.
Hugh Herr develops bionic limbs for amputees, and with two bionic legs himself, it's an industry he's personally invested in. At MIT’s Media Lab, he creates new and better legs for amputees. The lab's biohybrid smart prostheses and exoskeletons integrate microcomputers that monitor things like joint pressure and gait, allowing the limbs to respond to the body the same way biological legs would. The prosthetics are available through BiOM Inc., which Herr founded.
Herr is an associate professor and leads the biometrics research group at MIT’s Media Lab.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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