Skip to main content

Want to shake hands with the future? Check out this brain-controlled prosthetic

This story is part of our continuing coverage of CES 2020, including tech and gadgets from the showroom floor.

Recommended Videos

There are some moments you just know that you’re staring the future in the face. The moment at CES that gave us that feeling more than any other? Shaking hands with an astonishingly lifelike artificial intelligence-aided prosthetic hand, controlled via the wearer’s brain waves and muscle signals. It felt solid, natural, and… well, pretty much like any other handshake, really.

“The fingers are articulated independently; the pinky curls a little bit more around the palm of your hand,” said Jeremy Kaplan, Editor-in-Chief at Digital Trends. “Exactly like it would if you were shaking hands with someone else. That really stood out to me.”

The BrainCo Dexus prosthetic arm was selected by our editors as the best product at CES 2020. Check out more of our Top Tech of CES Award winners.
Best of CES 2020 Winner
CES 2020

The hand in question is the work of BrainCo, a cutting edge EEG science and robotics startup that the world is almost certainly going to hear a whole lot more about in the years to come. At Digital Trends, we’ve covered plenty of cool prosthetic limb projects. However, it’s incredibly rare to come across one that works as smoothly and intuitively as BrainCo’s prosthetic hand. Not only can it be intuitively controlled, sensing electrical instruction signals from the brain via the residual limb they travel down, but its movement is impressively dexterous. It could be a game-changer for amputees everywhere.

“We’ve developed the world’s most affordable A.I.-powered prosthetic hand,” Max Newlon, president of BrainCo, told Digital Trends. “[It] gives amputees control of the prosthetic just like you or I would control our hands.”

BrainCo Dexus prosthetic arm
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The dexterity of the hand allows it to be used for a wide range of tasks. At CES, demos included not just shaking hands, but also fine-grain movements such as writing calligraphy. Heck, it can even be used to play the piano. Users are free to program their own series of gestures and capabilities, which can be done in a short space of time.

In terms of pricing, the unit is expected to cost between $10,000 and $15,000 when it launches later this year. This is a fraction of the price of high-end prosthetic hands — which should enable this to find a wider audience base among those who need it the most. FDA approval is pending.

As much as we can’t get enough of smart televisions, self-driving cars, cool robots, and plenty more, it’s hard to get more exciting than amazing technology which promises to make a real, life-changing difference for users. This is one of them. No wonder Digital Trends awarded it our Top Tech “Tech For Change” CES 2020 prize.

Follow our live blog for more CES news and announcements.

Luke Dormehl
Former Digital Trends Contributor
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
Range Rover’s first electric SUV has 48,000 pre-orders
Land Rover Range Rover Velar SVAutobiography Dynamic Edition

Range Rover, the brand made famous for its British-styled, luxury, all-terrain SUVs, is keen to show it means business about going electric.

And, according to the most recent investor presentation by parent company JLR, that’s all because Range Rover fans are showing the way. Not only was demand for Range Rover’s hybrid vehicles up 29% in the last six months, but customers are buying hybrids “as a stepping stone towards battery electric vehicles,” the company says.

Read more
BYD’s cheap EVs might remain out of Canada too
BYD Han

With Chinese-made electric vehicles facing stiff tariffs in both Europe and America, a stirring question for EV drivers has started to arise: Can the race to make EVs more affordable continue if the world leader is kept out of the race?

China’s BYD, recognized as a global leader in terms of affordability, had to backtrack on plans to reach the U.S. market after the Biden administration in May imposed 100% tariffs on EVs made in China.

Read more
Tesla posts exaggerate self-driving capacity, safety regulators say
Beta of Tesla's FSD in a car.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is concerned that Tesla’s use of social media and its website makes false promises about the automaker’s full-self driving (FSD) software.
The warning dates back from May, but was made public in an email to Tesla released on November 8.
The NHTSA opened an investigation in October into 2.4 million Tesla vehicles equipped with the FSD software, following three reported collisions and a fatal crash. The investigation centers on FSD’s ability to perform in “relatively common” reduced visibility conditions, such as sun glare, fog, and airborne dust.
In these instances, it appears that “the driver may not be aware that he or she is responsible” to make appropriate operational selections, or “fully understand” the nuances of the system, NHTSA said.
Meanwhile, “Tesla’s X (Twitter) account has reposted or endorsed postings that exhibit disengaged driver behavior,” Gregory Magno, the NHTSA’s vehicle defects chief investigator, wrote to Tesla in an email.
The postings, which included reposted YouTube videos, may encourage viewers to see FSD-supervised as a “Robotaxi” instead of a partially automated, driver-assist system that requires “persistent attention and intermittent intervention by the driver,” Magno said.
In one of a number of Tesla posts on X, the social media platform owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a driver was seen using FSD to reach a hospital while undergoing a heart attack. In another post, a driver said he had used FSD for a 50-minute ride home. Meanwhile, third-party comments on the posts promoted the advantages of using FSD while under the influence of alcohol or when tired, NHTSA said.
Tesla’s official website also promotes conflicting messaging on the capabilities of the FSD software, the regulator said.
NHTSA has requested that Tesla revisit its communications to ensure its messaging remains consistent with FSD’s approved instructions, namely that the software provides only a driver assist/support system requiring drivers to remain vigilant and maintain constant readiness to intervene in driving.
Tesla last month unveiled the Cybercab, an autonomous-driving EV with no steering wheel or pedals. The vehicle has been promoted as a robotaxi, a self-driving vehicle operated as part of a ride-paying service, such as the one already offered by Alphabet-owned Waymo.
But Tesla’s self-driving technology has remained under the scrutiny of regulators. FSD relies on multiple onboard cameras to feed machine-learning models that, in turn, help the car make decisions based on what it sees.
Meanwhile, Waymo’s technology relies on premapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar, and lidar (a laser-light radar), which might be very costly, but has met the approval of safety regulators.

Read more