Time Amazed By Sensors

Sensors are evident in the innovations Time magazine chose for its November 21 cover story, called The Most Amazing Inventions of 2005. Among the featured inventions is plastic "thin skin," embedded with bendable, shock-resistant transistors that can detect pressure and temperature (for details see www.ntech.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp); rope that can alert firefighters or rock climbers when its load is too great (www.squid-labs.com); and robots that distinguish among voices coming from different locations, and can pinpoint a person in a crowd by the color of his clothes and the shape of his body (www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2005_05/pr2001.htm).