There are two key scenes in the 1980 film Star Wars the Empire Strikes Back. No, not the one where Darth Vader tells Luke, "I am your father." One is the moment right before that, where Vader lops off Luke's hand with a lightsaber. The other occurs a good deal later, when Luke is outfitted with a life-like bionic wrist and hand. In the next film, there's little, if any, indication that Luke has a robot hand.

The scenes were all the more startling because of how different real prostheses were in the early 80s and, really, right up until the last five years. In that time, an appalling number of amputees have returned home from the War in Iraq and the prosthesis industry (with a helpful push from DARPA) has transformed from a sleepy hamlet with tiny pockets of innovation, to a bustling metropolis of realistic replacement limb possibilities.

One such effort is coming out of DEKA Research and Development . Corporation President Dean Kamen is best known as the inventor of the Segway Human Transporter device. Heralded as a life changing invention before it was officially unveiled and then dismissed by many as an overblown disappointment shortly after, Segway has probably not lived up to its potential or Kamen's hopes. His latest invention, sans all the hoopla, could have a far greater impact on the thousands of people around the world.

According to a video on the IEEE Spectrum site, Kamen's artificial arm, dubbed "The Luke Arm", appears to be the most sophisticated artificial arm yet. It has remarkable range of motion and touch precision. Plus, it's modular so it can be used as an artificial hand, forearm, full arm or even an arm, and shoulder prosthesis. Complete, it weighs about eight pounds. Unlike Luke Skywalker's prosthesis, this robot arm remains skinless, but with the leaps Kamen's made, I imagine it's only a matter of time before artificial limbs are indistinguishable from the real thing.