transforming medicine with tomorrow’s technology

Aug

OCR to the Rescue: Device Reads Any Text for Blind

Posted by Steven F. Palter, MD Published in Augmented Abilities, Device Company, Medical Devices, Technology, camera, videos

Chalk up another innovation to Ray Kurzweil America’s leading inventor (and Lifeboat Foundation Advisor along with me). This one is a simple and elegant solution to help the visually impaired.
Developed in conjunction with the National Federation of the Blind, the device (The Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind Reader) is a digital camera that can photograph […]

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Aug

New Flexible Biodegradable Battery Invented

Posted by Steven F. Palter, MD Published in Device Company, Endoscopic Surgery, Future, Medical Devices, Robotics, Rovers, Technology, camera, implants, surgery

ars technica reports on the invention of a paper thin flexible biodegradable battery.
Researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and MIT have developed a new material that eliminates the need for a multilayer battery. They grew carbon nanotubes on a silicon substrate and impregnated the gaps between the tubes with cellulose—that’s right, plain old paper. The cellulose […]

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Aug

HD in the OR: The AVCHD Video Recording Format

Posted by Steven F. Palter, MD Published in Device Company, Endoscopic Surgery, Future, HDTV, Technology, Visualization, camera, medical literature, surgery, video

Can we go from this to this?
This post continues my series HD in the OR examining the current and future use of High Definition video in the Operating Room- as well as current and future HD technology. You can read background on my OR HD testing here. This was a big week - after working with […]

2 comments

Aug

New video Connector Solution for the OR? Displayport!

Posted by Steven F. Palter, MD Published in Device Company, Endoscopic Surgery, HDTV, Medical Devices, Technology, Visualization, camera, surgery, video

Continuing in my HD in the OR Series I wanted to share a video connection option for the future. Most current systems offer simple S-video or component video. As usual, the OR equipment lags a generation behind consumer video. This has has been my experience with the major consumer video and surgical video companies over […]

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Aug

HD Endoscopy Series Coming

Posted by Steven F. Palter, MD Published in Augmented Abilities, Device Company, Endoscopic Surgery, Future, HDTV, Medical Devices, Technology, Visualization, camera, future vision, surgery

I have been inundated with requests for information and critiques of Medical HD endoscopy/laparoscopy systems. To meet the rising tide of demand for information I will begin an ongoing series of posts of HDTV in surgery, laparoscopy and endoscopy. You can read about my testing of the World’s Highest Resolution HDTV Surgical Camera - Ever! […]

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Aug

Army’s Robotic Prosthetic Arm Demo’d

Posted by Steven F. Palter, MD Published in Augmented Abilities, DARPA, Device Company, Future, Gesture Control, Medical Devices, Military, Robotics, Technology, implants, videos

I have previously written about the Army’s robotic prosthetic arm projects - run of course through DARPA. You can see my posts and a video fest at Video Fest of Brain-Computer Links & Control.
An equally amazing story is how the project has come to be- DARPA contacted Deam Kamen (and team at DEKA of Segway […]

4 comments

Aug

DARPA’s Battlefield Robot Medic to Deploy in 2009

Posted by Steven F. Palter, MD Published in DARPA, Endoscopic Surgery, Future, Medical Devices, Military, Robotics, Technology, future vision, surgery, vehicles, videos

This year is the 50th anniversary of DARPA, or the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon research arm who turns science fiction fantasy into military reality. DARPA conducts high-risk military research and in the process develops amazing medical technology. To kick things off right at their 3-day DARPA tech conference (or official site here) they announced the upcoming deployment […]

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Aug

Photographic Archiving - Insight for the OR From the Library of Congress

Posted by Steven F. Palter, MD Published in Endoscopic Surgery, Medical Devices, Technology, Visualization, camera, future vision, surgery

As part of my posts on my research on high definition surgery (and its recording) in the operating room, I posted on the limitations of still photo archiving in the operating room and potential future advances from new compression systems.
I received a great email today from Ronald Murray. Ron is a Digital Conversion Specialist (& Registered Biological Photographer) in […]

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Aug

New HD Photo Compression System Could Help Surgical Archiving

Posted by Steven F. Palter, MD Published in Endoscopic Surgery, Future, HDTV, Medical Devices, Technology, Visualization, camera, future vision, surgery

Microsoft on Tuesday announced that the Joint Photographic Expert Group (JPEG) is considering standardization of the company’s HD Photo file format. Tentatively titled “JPEG XR,” HD Photo was introduced with the release of Windows Vista.
Medical Opportunity?While not as glamarous as a fashy new gizmo the file format could provide an opportunity to obtain very high […]

6 comments

Aug

How We Recorded the World’s Highest Resolution Surgical Footage

Posted by Steven F. Palter, MD Published in Device Company, Endoscopic Surgery, HDTV, Medical Devices, Technology, Visualization, Women's Health, future vision, surgery, videos

My last post outlines the equipment I used to perform the world’s highest resolution endoscopic surgery. Here I wanted to share what we had to do the record the footage at full HD resolution to get it to National Geographic for their HD feature “Inside the Living Body”. Archiving HD surgical footage has been a […]

4 comments