Medical Technology News From Around The World
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Siri, the voice-activated intelligent assistant might have made waves when it made its debut inside the iPhone 4S last month, but a group of DIY hackers think the voice technology is already old technology. The group’s Siri hack, called Project Black Mirror, takes Siri to the next level by activating it using only your thoughts.
The technology behind Project Black Mirror, like many popular DIY hacks, centers around an Arduino microcontroller chip. EEG pads attached to the skin transfer brain activity to the Arduino, which is responsible for filtering the signals and associating patterns with certain words and Siri commands. The words are combined into phrases to form a complete Siri command, and the entire command phrase is fed to a speech synthesizer chip which audibly recites the command through the iPhone 4S’s microphone jack.
Mobisante‘s ultrasound probe for smartphones is heading towards Android phones (and hopefully tablets as well). iMedicalApps is reporting this after talking to the company’s CEO Sailesh Chutani.
A major disadvantage for the probe, which was recently commercially launched, is that it currently only works with the outdated Windows Mobile 6.5-based Toshiba TG01 smartphone. The reason for this is the lack of (robust) USB 2.0 host support in both Android and iOS. Google plans to change that in the recently announced Android 4.0, code-named Ice Cream Sandwich, which will have better USB host mode support. We can only hope Apple will make a similar move in its upcoming iOS versions. Mobisante, meanwhile, is working on getting its software ported to Android ASAP.
The Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering IBMT in St. Ingbert, Germany released a new iOS app for crunching raw ultrasound data right on the iPhone or iPad. The app will be presented at the MEDICA 2011 conference in Dusseldorf next week.
From the iTunes info page:
Carestream has received FDA clearance for the use of its Vue Motion medical image viewer on mobile devices. Vue Motion is a HTML5 web-based viewer which does not require downloading of any dedicated software or applications, and is suitable for a variety of mobile devices, including tablets such as the iPad. Rendering of the images happens on the server back-end, just as all image data is stored on the server, requiring no storage space on the device.
Vue Motion can pull in and display clinical data from multiple sources, providing a full report history
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Everist Genomics, an Ann Arbor, Michigan company, is set to release its CardioDefender diagnostic system, a smartphone ECG that can provide continuous readings throughout the day that can help detect arrhythmias that may be hard to spot in an office visit.
The system uses a wrist watch-like device to collect data from electrodes and transmit it wirelessly via Bluetooth to a smartphone that can then share it with clinicians monitoring the patient. CardioDefender, that recently won both FDA approval and EU’s CE Mark, can activate an alarm to rapidly notify a physician of any particularly unwelcome graph via an email, page, or other electronic means.
In news out of Steeler Nation, University of Pittsburgh researchers led by Mingui Sun, professor of neurosurgery and electrical and computer engineering, have developed a wearable multi-sensor device that automatically tracks a person’s activities, including food intake, shopping patterns, and activity levels.
It encompasses a camera, accelerometer, and GPS and connects to a computer for analyzing the data. It’s currently being studied in a pilot trial to see whether it can help to accurately assess caloric intake and activity levels.
BAM Labs out of Silicon Valley recently released their contact-free patient monitoring system that’s built around a sensor mat wedged under the mattress. It provides live readings of breathing and heart rates in addition to patient motion and whether someone decided to get out of bed. The system wirelessly sends patient data to central servers which make it available for clinicians to browse on screens at nursing stations or via smart phones and tablet devices.
The system was designed by former Apple employees for use in acute, post acute and home environments for both short and long term monitoring of patients.
HealthPrize Technologies launched its new smartphone app that motivates people to adhere to their medication regimens.
Available for the iPhone and Android devices, the app uses a system of reward points that can be redeemed for real prizes, as well as games and educational tidbits to improve medication compliance.
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