EndUser's Amazon Blog

Today, Gizmodo highlighted this video of a new artificial finger that can replace all the functionality of a real finger without any electronics. In short, the video--and the invention itself--seem amazing.

There's one catch, though. Its inventor--Dan Didrick --needs financial support to ramp up production. Currently, he only has the capacity to have about 100 fingers made every 45 days. Given the extremely high interest amongst injured armed forces people, that's not nearly enough to meet demand.

The prosthetic is designed to do the same work as a real finger. It can bend down, point forward and even wag back and forth. The finger can even support the weight of a full cup of coffee or clutch a golf club.

The X-Finger is kind of like a tinker toy that is strapped to the stub or remaining portion of a finger. When the stub moves down it pushes against a lever called a pan that curls the artificial knuckles.

"There’s no learning curve," Didrick says, as he straps on one of his devices on his own index finger. As he curls the tip of his index finger, the X-Finger curls in-step.

It may not be electronic, but this is really amazing stuff. Hopefully Didrick finds some investors to help him get off the ground.