biotechnology

Student Led Startup Utilizes Technology to Help Combat Workplace Injuries

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In 2016, three Cornell students, Apoorva Kiran, Ph.D. ’17, Pankaj Singh, Ph.D. ’17 and Jason Guss, Ph.D. ’18 embarked on a technical journey to tackle prevalent injuries in workspaces. The group found that their Ph.D. programs in mechanical and biomedical engineering required abundant amounts of time on computers. The frequent hand movements that were thus necessary, soon resulted in the buildup of pain within their wrists. It was then that Kiran, after finding various biomedical technologies for back pain and slouching, came up with the idea of creating a similar technology that targeted wrists — with the hope being that the device would vibrate when the hand was placed in an injurious position. With this idea, Orthofit was born and the three co-founders worked towards creating a glove that would be able to provide the functionality of informing users when their wrists were in harmful positions.

Arts & Culture

A Disconnect in The Feed

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In a period often referred to as the “information age,” the notion of technological addiction is a fairly pervasive reality, and very much a hot topic of conversation. Written for an audience primed with various science-fiction films and novels about this idea, the expectations for The Feed, Nick Clark Windo’s debut novel, were high. With a title that overtly references the main aspect of popular social media: one’s facebook feed, twitter feed, instagram feed, etc., there was a sense of relevancy to the novel that was almost immediately debunked by the end of chapter one. The novel evoked commentary similar to that of Dave Eggers’s novel The Circle (2013) in an atmosphere of mass-death and suspect forces akin to Oryx and Crake (2003) by Margaret Atwood. However, the execution of The Feed lacked the subtlety and mind-warping prose that allowed for the success of its forebears.

Columns

GUEST ROOM | The Ubiquity of Ethics and Software

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The pressing topic of cybersecurity has resurfaced in the public conscious following the news of Russian hackers leaking thousands of emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee. Software might be developed for one clear-cut purpose, but more often than not, the technology’s ethical ramifications are disregarded by engineers. In the case of the Russian hacking, the individuals that perpetrated the cyberattack broke a moral code by intentionally hacking to commit an illegal act. For software engineers, their innovative skills come with a great deal of responsibility. Although an engineer’s top priority is efficiency, they must not overlook ethics.

Columns

DUGGAL | Technologically Shook

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I have hit the point in the semester where I could not bring myself to care less about things even if I tried. I thought I hit that point two weeks ago; unfortunately, I was wrong, and here I am, eating ice cream out of a tub in the middle of Klarman Atrium. I can feel even the statues frowning at my life decisions. Two weeks ago, I wrote a horrific column on something related to technology and how people make it out to be worse than it is and why that was a narrow way to look at a complex topic, especially one that is not going anywhere just by having us wish it away. Quite frankly, I hated it, and I would like to apologize to anyone who’s eyes might have perused those particular set of words.

AI

MALPASS | A.I. : Benefit or Hazard?

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For decades, pop culture has been fascinated by robot servants. It always seemed so far off, having a robotic servant to help in our day to day lives. Look at the Jetsons, they needed to have stratosphere, saucer houses before they had a robot maid. It makes it strange to think that we now live in a society where robotics not only exist, but are the norm. I’m not talking about independent, Turing Test beating automata, but increasingly intelligent machines are finding their way into day-to-day life.

Columns

WANG | ¡I, Caramba!

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Roombas are adorable. They look like rounded pieces of To-Ak chocolate, and cost about the same. My parents managed to pick one up before the holidays, and it whirs around during the day, dusting off the micro-pests that clutter the household. My dad seems genuinely amazed. “Look at this,” he says giddily.