Combine a scale with a product scanner, add a little calories and nutritional analysis database, and you get the hiREC Product Recorder. Designed to provide quick and useful information about food and other products purchased, the idea earned a Silver at the Samsung Young Design Awards.
More imagery at Yanko Design…
Samsung Young Design Awards…
(hat tip: Gizmodo)
Archives: 11/2007
Another conceptual design that can potentially become a product comes from Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands and Philips. Addressing the need of those with both poor hearing and vision, the system combines glasses, a directional microphone, and audio filtering software to create a product a good number of geriatric patients might one day find quite helpful.
Embedded over the length of each spectacle arm are four tiny microphones which transmit sounds from the front and simultaneously blocks background noise.
This creates “directional sensitivity”, so sounds coming from the direction of the wearer’s gaze are amplified while those from ambient surroundings are dampened. This helps to make conversations clearer in noisy environments where standard hearing aids can often be thwarted by background din.
More from CNET Asia…
(via Sci Fi Tech)
A team of Harvard scientists implanted genes into mice that coded for three color fluorescing proteins in their brains, and had them randomly express themselves, producing up to 90 different color shades. The image above, dubbed the Brainbow, was created using the technique, and the New York Times describes the motivation for the research:
For an organ that has been scanned millions of times by experts using high-end imaging technology, the brain remains in large part a shrouded landscape, as lost in darkness as the ocean floor.
One reason has less to with the brain’s complexity than its uniformity: it contains billions of identical-looking cells, most sprouting multiple identical-looking branches to other cells, near and far. A needle in a haystack at least looks different from the strands around it; finding and mapping large numbers of neurons is more like working out the root system beneath a tropical rain forest.
But last week, researchers at Harvard published pictures in which all those anonymous gray cells glowed in distinctive colors, like a bougainvillea bush gone haywire.
German investigators are trying to develop a novel imaging modality, based on detection of antibodies conjugated to gold nanoparticles, to be used for early diagnosis, and possible treatment, of prostate cancer.
From the press statement by the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering:
A novel, cost-efficient and sensitive device will soon increase the number of early diagnoses of prostate cancer and offer more patients the prospect of recovery. This diagnostic device was developed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Technology IBMT in St. Ingbert in collaboration with partners from five European countries. The European Commission is funding the project to the tune of 2.2 million euros. “We use a combination of two different imaging techniques: optical imaging and ultrasound,” says IBMT department manager Dr. Robert Lemor. “We shine laser light into the tissue, causing it to heat up and expand. This generates pressure in the form of a sound wave, which spreads through the tissue in much the same way as ultrasound and is also detected in the same way.” The researchers thus combine the good contrast of light with the good spatial resolution of sound, using the advantages of both systems.
In order to detect cancer cells at an early stage, however, the researchers require an even stronger contrast between cancerous and healthy cells. “We achieve this by using gold particles just a few nanometers in size. Gold absorbs the laser’s infrared light much better than the cells, and therefore appears brighter in the picture,” says Lemor. The researchers attach antibodies to the gold particles, and these antibodies bond with specific proteins. These occur several thousand times more frequently in cancer cells than in healthy tissue. “This means that the gold accumulates specifically around the cancer cells, while hardly any gold is found on healthy cells,” explains Lemor. The gold particles not only serve diagnostic purposes but can also be used for therapy. If the laser output is increased and the tissue is irradiated for a longer period, the gold heats up and the generated heat destroys the cancer cells. Healthy tissue is not affected, as hardly any gold accumulates in it.
Press release: Early diagnosis of prostate cancer …
World Community Grid Squeezes Decades of Cancer Research Into Two Years Analysis
by on Nov 8, 2007 • 6:51 am
Canadian researchers, in collaboration with IBM, hope to use the combined computing power of hundreds of thousands of idle computers to cram 162 years of cancer research into just a few years.
The team will use World Community Grid to analyze the results of experiments on proteins using data collected by scientists at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute in Buffalo, New York. This analysis would take conventional computer systems 162 years to complete. However, using World Community Grid, Dr. Jurisica anticipates the analysis could be finished in one to two years, and will provide researchers with a better way to study how proteins function, insight that could lead to the development of more effective cancer-fighting drugs.
“We know that most cancers are caused by defective proteins in our bodies, but we need to better understand the specific function of those proteins and how they interact in the body,” said Dr. Jurisica. “We also have to find proteins that will enable us to diagnose cancer earlier, before symptoms appear, to have the best chance of treating the disease — or potentially stopping it completely.”
The research team now has more than 86 million images of 9,400 unique proteins that could be linked to cancer, captured in the course of more than 14.5 million experiments by colleagues at Hauptman-Woodward.
This comprises the most comprehensive database on the chemistry of a large number of proteins, a resource that will help researchers around the world unlock the mystery of how many cancers, such as breast, prostate or childhood leukemia, grow.
Individuals can donate their computers for this project by registering on www.worldcommunitygrid.org, and installing a free, secure, small software program on their computers. The computer requests data from World Community Grid’s server when it is idle, for example a user is at lunch, and performs the cancer-related protein computations. A screen saver will tell individuals when their computers are being used.
World Community Grid is the largest public humanitarian grid with more than 333,000 members and links to more than 780,000 computers. However, it’s estimated that there are one billion computers worldwide, underscoring the potential for the grid and its computational power to significantly expand. Eight projects have been run on World Community Grid to date, including protein folding and FightAIDS@Home, which completed five years of HIV/AIDS research in just six months.
Press release from IBM…
World Community Grid website…
Flashbacks: PS3′s Folding at Home Project Could Find a Cure for Alzheimers, The Cure@PS3 Project; A New Way to Join Our Team, Rosetta@home…
(hat tip: Roland Piquepaille’s Technology Trends)
If you don’t know what to give your boss this holiday season, with a new healthcare gift card from Highmark Inc. you can let the brutal honesty out and tell him it’s for his meds. The Wall Street Journal Online chronicles the new phenomenon:
Pittsburgh health insurer Highmark Inc. is selling a Healthcare Visa Gift Card from $25 to $5,000 to cover prescription co-payments, elective surgery, contact lenses and gym membership.
The cards can be used only at providers or merchants that Visa categorizes as health related, including physician’s offices, pharmacies and health clubs.
The cards aren’t available at grocery or retail stores — they can only be purchased online or by calling a toll-free number.
More from The Wall Street Journal…
Zach Rosenthal, a clinical psychologist at Duke University, has unveiled a new “virtual reality” program that uses pavlovian conditioning to try and treat crack addicts. While the details are a bit vague, the program appears to be a “virtual world” in which addicts can experience virtual cravings. Here are some more details on how the program is meant to work from an ABC News article:
When temptation arises in certain situations, the patient rates his or her own craving level. But the magic moment comes when a high craving subsides, which it does, because the patient won’t be taking drugs in the virtual world.
The therapist tries to tie that moment, when a craving subsides, to a trigger, like a tone. So the addict eventually learns to associate the sound with the sensation of decreased craving.
The ultimate goal is to stop a craving before it begins, even if an addict walks into a tempting situation in the real world.
For example, if an addict ends up in a tempting situation, he or she can take out the phone donated by the program, dial a number and hear that tone. The addict remembers the sound learned in the therapy session, and the craving should subside.
So if crack addicts need video games to stop their crack addiction, do video game addicts need crack? Makes you think…
Read the ABC News article here…
(hat tip: Joystiq)
This new volumetric medical display from the Fraunhofer-Institut für Nachrichtentechnik, Heinrich-Hertz-Institut (HHI) in Berlin offers not only 3D visualization for radiologists and surgeons, but also has a built in function that allows the manipulation and rotation of the image without touch, hence allowing clinicians not to break the scrub during sterile procedures:
The physician leans back in a chair and studies the three-dimensional image floating before his eyes. After a little reflection, he raises a finger and points at a virtual button, likewise floating in the air. At the physician’s command, the CAT scan image rotates from right to left or up and down – precisely following the movement of his finger. In this way, he can easily detect any irregularities in the tissue structure. With another gesture, he can click on to the next image. Later, in the operating room, the surgeon can continue to refer to the scanner images. Using gesture control to rotate the images, he can look at the scan of the patient’s organs from the same perspective as he sees them on the operating table. There is no risk of contaminating his sterile gloves, because there is no mouse or keyboard involved.
But how does the system know which way the finger is pointing? “There are two cameras installed above the display that projects the three-dimensional image,” explains Wolfgang Schlaak, who heads the department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich-Hertz-Institut HHI in Berlin that developed the display. “Since each camera sees the pointing finger from a different angle, image processing software can then identify its exact position in space.” The cameras record one hundred frames per minute. A third camera, integrated in the frame of the display, scans the user’s face and eyes at the same frequency. The associated software immediately identifies the inclination of the person’s head and the direction in which the eyes are focused, and generates the appropriate pair of stereoscopic images, one for the left eye and one for the right. If the person moves their head a couple of inches to the side, the system instantly adapts the images. “In this way, the user always sees a high-quality three-dimensional image on the display, even while moving about. This is essential in an operating theater, and allows the physician to act naturally when carrying out routine tasks,” says Schlaak. “The unique feature of this system is that it combines a 3-D display screen with a non-contact user interface.” The three-dimensional display costs significantly less than conventional 3-D screens of comparable quality. Schlaak is convinced that “this makes our gesture-controlled 3-D display an affordable option even for smaller medical practices.”
Press release: Non-contact image control …
(hat tip: gizmag)
The press office of the National Research Council Canada has some new details, and interviews with creators, of the world’s first MRI-compatible, image-guided neurosurgical robot NeuroArm, a device we brought to your attention back in April:
Brain surgery has stepped into a bright new era where high-precision robots will do the job, guided by sophisticated imaging systems and a surgeon’s skill at a computer. “NeuroArm” — the world’s first MRI-compatible, image-guided surgical robot — promises to dramatically increase surgical accuracy and safety by liberating it from the constraints of the human hand. Patients should see better surgical outcomes and fewer repeat surgeries for tumours that can grow back if not completely removed.
Unveiled in Calgary in April 2007, NeuroArm is the brainchild of Dr. Garnette Sutherland, professor at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Medicine and neurosurgeon for the Calgary Health Region. In a six-year project that turned concept into reality, Dr. Sutherland guided a multidisciplinary team of Canadian university and industry-based scientists, including NRC biodiagnostics and materials researchers. NeuroArm was built in collaboration with MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd., the Ontario-based robotics company that built the two Canadarms used on NASA space shuttles.
“NeuroArm offers enhanced dexterity and accuracy, even at microscopic levels,” Dr. Sutherland explains. “Surgeons will no longer have to stand over a patient’s head for hours, fighting off tremor or fatigue while executing high-precision work. This new technology allows surgeons to manipulate tools from a computer workstation, leaving the actual surgery to the robotic arm,” he says.
NeuroArm came to life through a unique partnership among medical, engineering and physics researchers as well as philanthropists, government organizations and the high-tech sector. Dr. Sutherland credits NRC and its spin-off company, IMRIS, for one of the major attributes of neuroArm: its capacity to integrate high-resolution real-time imaging of the brain during an operation.
Dr. Boguslaw Tomanek leads NRC’s magnetic resonance (MR) team in Calgary. Several years ago, he and Dr. Scott King, who manages NRC’s magnetic resonance prototyping facility in Winnipeg, began working with Dr. Sutherland on ways to combine MR imaging with robotics. He remembers early conversations with the visionary Dr. Sutherland who wondered whether surgeons — connected to a space mission by computer — could one day guide a surgical robot to operate on a sick astronaut orbiting in space. “Dr. Sutherland was extremely curious about technology, and was very open to new ideas,” recalls Dr. Tomanek.
NRC’s expertise in magnetic resonance imaging played a significant role in developing neuroArm. “Several years ago, we designed and made the prototype of the intraoperative MRI system now installed at Calgary’s Foothills Hospital,” says Dr. Tomanek. “That basic technology was commercialized by IMRIS, and many surgeons were trained to use it. The work to create the MRI-compatible robotic arm came out of this earlier work on imaging systems.”
In the field of magnetic resonance imaging, NRC is known for its expertise in radio-frequency (RF) coils. “The coil creates the radio frequency field needed to image internal organs. Correct positioning, high image quality and orientation of the coil are critical as the magnet moves over the patient’s brain, yet the coil cannot get in the way of the robotic arm,” says Dr. Tomanek. “We had to design a dedicated RF coil to accommodate the robot’s access to the brain.”
In addition to designing a unique RF coil with access portals, NRC also guided research on the innovative materials required to make the robotic arm compatible with MRI scanning during surgery. “We performed a great deal of computational work to come up with an RF coil design and materials that would work properly together,” says Dr. Tomanek. “And, given the requirements of the operating theatre, the coil had to be made of materials that could be regularly cleaned and sterilized.”
NRCC: Surgical robot revolutionizes brain surgery …
Flashback: NeuroArm: Navigating the Future of Surgery
