As someone who has been shoved into prosthetics before I was old enough to say "get it off", I was intrigued when the superhero-style 3D-printed prosthetic limb launched back in 2018. It was definitely exciting if you were a kid who wanted to be a superhero. I was hopeful that, after donning a 90s myoelectric arm--similar to a fake limb you might find backstage of an amateur dramatics theater group only heavier--or any of the other cumbersome limbs that haunted my past, the Hero Arm would be the beginning of a future of more comfortable, sought-after designs. Open Bionics--the prosthetic company known for the Hero Arm--have recently launched a new prosthetic designed for those with partial hand differences. The Hero Gauntlet enables a wider range in dexterity for people who have either congenital hand differences or amputated fingers.

A seven-year-old boy born without a right hand is now beaming with joy as he tried out his new'robot arm'. Louie Morgan-Kemp, of Swavesey, Cambridgeshire, had just started fundraising for the prosthetic when a kind-hearted businessman saw his story in the news and offered to pay the full £13,000 cost. The youngster collected the Ironman-themed Hero Arm this week and can move its mechanical fingers by using muscles in his arm to press buttons inside the sleeve. Louie said the gadget, made by Bristol-based Open Bionics, helps him with picking things up, cutting food and pouring drinks. He said it was'exciting' to get the arm and he was'happy' that businessman Billy Dixon had paid for him to get it.

Something built to blend into a society where people have all of their limbs while serving functional use cases. On the other end of the spectrum are the highly optimized prosthetics used by Athletes, built for speed, low weight, and appearing nothing like a human limb. As a child under 12 years old, neither of these categories of prosthetics particularly speaks to you. Open Bionics, founded by Joel Gibbard and Samantha Payne, was started to create a third category of prosthetics. One that targets the fun, imaginative side of children, while still providing the daily functional requirements.

The U.K. is gaining in popularity as a great place to start a tech firm. The country is quickly catching up to China on the tech investment front, with VC investments reaching a record of $15 billion in 2020, according to TechNation. A global health crisis notwithstanding, London remained a favorite for investors. U.K. cities made up a fifth of the top 20 European cities, with names such as Oxford, Dublin, Edinburgh and Cambridge rising to the fore in 2020. Bristol proved especially popular among tech investors last year -- local businesses raked in an impressive $414 million in 2020, making it the third-largest U.K. city for tech investment.

At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Apple engineers embarked on a rare collaboration with Google. The goal was to build a system that could track individual interactions across an entire population, in an effort to get a head start on isolating potentially infectious carriers of a disease that, as the world was discovering, could be spread by asymptomatic patients. Delivered at breakneck pace, the resulting exposure notification tool has yet to prove its worth. The NHS Covid-19 app uses it, as do others around the world. But lockdowns make interactions rare, limiting the tool's usefulness, while in a country with uncontrolled spread, it isn't powerful enough to keep the R number low. In the Goldilocks zone, when conditions are just right, it could save lives.

A British man has been fitted with a prosthetic arm inspired by a character from the classic video game, Metal Gear Solid. The Metal Gear Solid design covers the Hero Arm – the world's most affordable multi-grip bionic arm at around £10,000 – made by Bristol firm Open Bionics. Hero Arm, which is light, comfortable and'fits like a glove', has the dexterity to hold a mobile phone, cutlery or a pen – and operate machinery such as a lawnmower. The arm's movable fingers can also be held in a static position for a safe and reliable grip – and pick up an egg without breaking it. Hero Arm is already available in a range of exterior casings inspired by pop culture and films, such as such as Ironman and BB8 from Star Wars.

A British teenager born with only one hand is learning to ride a bike after being fitted with the world's first medically-certified 3D-printed bionic hand. Fourteen-year-old Aimee Ashton, a talented art student from Hull, was born with part of her arm missing and no left hand. Aimee had previously used prosthetic arms but stopped using them because'they didn't do anything' and weren't responsive to movement. But she has since been fitted with the'Hero Arm', developed by Bristol-based company Open Bionics, which costs around £10,000. The battery-powered arm picks up signals from muscles allowing the user to do tasks with both hands.

A schoolgirl has had her first ever bionic arm fitted after being born without a right hand. Hollie Lownds, 11, was fitted with the'Iron Man' themed bionic arm, which is worth £5,000, in September. It will allow her to brush her hair, eat with a knife and fork and ride a bike for the first time, and she is particularly excited to open Christmas presents with two hands. Hollie's parents were told 20 weeks into the pregnancy that their daughter was missing her right hand because of a growth defect but the cause wasn't clear to doctors. Since she was born she hasn't had a prosthetic arm and has tried to use the stump of her elbow joint to grasp things and open doors.

One year after Open Bionics began selling its 3D-printed Hero Arm prosthetic in the UK, the bionic arm is available in the US. Open Bionics has made a name for itself as a start-up specializing in low-cost prosthetics, and you might remember it as the company behind arms inspired by Iron Man, Star Wars, Frozen and Deus Ex. But until now, the Hero Arm has only been available in the UK and France. The wait is over, y'all. Upper limb amputees in the states, sign up here and we'll refer you to your nearest @HangerNews clinic: https://t.co/NYvtvoul0K

A Bristol-based robotics company, Open Bionics, has developed the world's first medically-certified 3D-printed artificial arm for amputees. The Hero Arm, with its artificial hand, can fit children as young as nine years old. Its motor is controlled by muscles on the residual limb, allowing the user to carry out many tasks as if the hand was real. Open Bionics hope the £5,000 bionic arm could be made available on the NHS. BBC Click's Kathleen Hawkins went to meet Raimi, who says the arm has given her a new confidence.