Remember how cool and dark the ending of The Empire Strikes Back was? Han Solo was encased in carbonite! Lando finally defied the empire to protect Leia and the gang! Luke got his arm chopped off by his father and was outfitted with a cool robotic duplicate. Well now, thanks to technology, one of these things is finally happening in real life. No, not carbonite(although Billy Dee Williams is pretty dang cool.) It’s the formal invention of something that seems remarkably close to Luke’s bionic arm. That’s not true. That’s impossibleeeee.
It is very possible. The world of prosthetics and bionic appendages has been growing like gangbusters in recent months and years. Now comes a new reason to leap for joy. A company called Bebionic has been busily putting the finishing touches on their astounding Bebionic3 bionic arm. This myoelectric prosthetic hand that uses residual neuro-muscular signals from your muscles to operate a number of precise functions. In short, it works almost exactly like Luke Sykwalker’s aforementioned appendage. The wearer can write with a pen, hold a wine glass and even crack open an egg.
All told there are 14 positions and grips the wearer can approximate. It even comes in a natural skin tone for those who don’t want the anti-cyborg coalition to give them a hard time while they are grocery shopping. Those guys can be such a drag! We have a couple of videos of the arm in action below. Check them out and then make a beeline to your DVD collection for an original trilogy re-watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gudJkhlxUbw
