Glimpse the Future of Medicine at a Cell-Phone Convention: What is 4G?

Posted on April 7, 2008 by Steven F. Palter, MD

The annual cell-phone (I should say wireless) convention of the year just wound up over at CTIA in Vegas. Usually these meeting spark some idea in me due to a new device or new wireless technology such as a universal wireless device charger, or an image recognition and analysis system that can lead to a future medical device. No such individual device or software at this meeting- but much bigger I am amazed at the awesome potential of the next generation wireless system in general: 4G wireless. This always on technology promises a wireless future where multiple devices that are always on will pull and deliver all sorts of data from your patients or surgical devices. A 4G system will be able to provide a comprehensive solution where voice, data and streamed multimedia can be given to users on an “Anytime, Anywhere” basis, and at higher data rates.

My analysis of the awards given out at CTIA was struck by the focus on developing 4G technologies.

First some background definitions – What is 4G: The History of Wireless Cell-phone Technologies: Briefly the first generation systems were analog based (1G). 2G second generation systems were the first that were all digital. Reported advantages of digital 2G systems are voice data can be compressed more effectively than allowing more calls to be packed into the same amount of radio bandwidth and they required less radio power.

3G systems promised: (such as Verizon’s EV-DO)

Enhanced multimedia (voice, data, video, and remote control).
Usability on all popular modes (cellular telephone, e-mail, paging, fax, videoconferencing, and Web browsing).
Broad bandwidth and high speed (upwards of 2 Mbps).
Roaming capability throughout Europe, Japan, and North America

Why 4G Will Transform Medicine & Surgery: Let me be the first to ring the bell for the promise of 4G in medicine. It has been written that it is expected that end-to-end intenet lanuage (IP) based system and high-quality streaming video will be among 4G’s distinguishing features. Fourth generation networks are likely to use a combination of WiMAX and WiFi- like your high speed wireless internet at home. The explosive potential is:

When fully implemented, 4G is expected to enable pervasive computing, in which simultaneous connections to multiple high-speed networks provide seamless handoffs throughout a geographical area. Network operators may employ technologies such as cognitive radio and wireless mesh networks to ensure connectivity and efficiently distribute both network traffic and spectrum.

4G networks, when coupled with cellular phones equipped with higher quality digital cameras and even HD capabilities, will enable vlogs to go mobile, as has already occurred with text-based moblogs. New models for collaborative citizen journalism are likely to emerge as well in areas with 4G connectivity.

In medicine this means you can have surgical devices, electronic medicial records, imaging devices, and your cell-phone like handheld all communicating and sharing info at broadband speeds in HD.

New Monitoring System Approved by FDA- Potential for Future Robotic Diagnostics

Posted on April 2, 2008 by Steven F. Palter, MD

The FDA has just approved the FreeStyle Navigator Glucose Monitoring System – a glucose sensor that reports glucose values continuously for up to 120 hours. Here is a copy of the FDA PMA letter. This device is interesting to me since it works with a sensor inserted in either the abdomen or the back of the upper arm. The device then continuous provides glucose readings and updated glucose trend information for viewing and contains a built-in alarm that can be programmed to alert the user when results fall below pre-set values. Other similar devices have been approved that monitor for 7 days.

Potential for Future Robotic Diagnostics I have written before that I predict a whole new field of chip based biologic disease screening and monitoring in the future. This is another step to that result. Here a sensor is placed under the skin that measure blood sugar. In the future minitaturized chips could be placed in any body cavity or organ to sense any imaginable molecule.

Options for Future Diagnostics:

DNA based sensors screen for cancer metastasis or recurrances such as an intrabdomnal ovarian cancer detector.
Sensore that measure drug levels in target tissues – chemotherapy of course comes to mind
protein sensors that look for the earliest stages of disease development.

As personalized genetics becomes more widespread, we will identify individuals at particular risk for particular diseases before they occur. Since the genetic basis of these diseases will be known markers will likely exist. Implanted chip sensors could then be placed to sniff for these markers and wireless transmit the alarm- or even deliver a predetermined treatment agent- all before there is any external sign of the disease. First generation implantable devices such as this for blood sugar monitoring are lisated here (none yet available):

Here are links to some of the technology that will be involved for these future diagnostics including tiny sensors that transmit with RFID, smartdust sensors the size of a speck of dust or less, smart pills that travel through the body transmitting data and the concept of personalized genetic information based diagnostics and personalized genetics in general.

All approved continuouis blood sugar monitoring devices are here and a comparison from a patient site here:

As an aside – in terms of glucose monitoring the use of thse devices may come into question. An ongoing diabetes study called ACCORD was cut short in one treatment arm when it was shown that ultra tight strict blood sugar control in diabetics with heart disease actually WORSENED outcomes!

New Visual Search Engine Debut-Works with a cell phone photo! Medical Uses Next?

Posted on March 4, 2008 by Steven F. Palter, MD

I have been following the consumer device CeBIT show in Germany. Pocket-lint UK reports:

At the CeBIT show in Germany, Vodafone is demonstrating a trial service called “Otello”, which is a search engine that uses images, rather than words. Rather than use a word as a search term, Otello users can send images via MMS from their mobiles and the search service which then returns the results to the user’s phone as an “ordinary” search result.

A picture from a newspaper, billboard, book cover or place are all examples of what can be searched for.

Vodafone is running trials with a German newspaper that lets users find out more about stories by photographing the images that appear in the article and MMSing the images.

There’s no word on breaking this out of trial phase at this stage.

I just had a meeting with reps from a major medical device company where I discussed the potential for smart image tagging and identification in medical imaging. Just think of the potential when this smart technology could be applied to image pattern recognition for skin lesions, radiologic images, and pathology slides. Rural medicine will never be the same! Cell photo snap an image and link to a search engine to get a diagnosis (we know who wants that to happen). Right now the system is prepopulated with images then recognized. In the future neural net and patern recognition technology will take this a step forward. Similar systems already exist for pap smear screening of cytologic abnormalities including a commercially available system papnet (made by Neuromedical Systems, Inc. who filed for chapter 11 and sold their intellectual proprty to Autocyte Inc).

How Smartdust, Souveillance, Web 3.0, and Personalized Genetics Will Transform the Future of Medical Diagnostics

Posted on February 25, 2008 by Steven F. Palter, MD

There has been a flurry of debate in the military, industrial, and privacy sectors on “smartdust” and the concept of “souveillance” – but no one has yet realized this technology is poised to springboard into medicine and transform medical diagnostics. Here I wanted to give you an overview of what this idea is and why you should keep your eye on it.

First the general concept background:

“Smartdust” refers to micro devices (called motes) which are detection microchips each potentially the size of a speck of dust. These grains of sand however can automatically self-network. So far people have conceived of these low-power distributed sensing networks as having functions for climate control systems, entertainment devices and especially for big brother type surveillance systems.

Wikipedia wrote “the smartdust concept was introduced by Kristofer S. J. Pister (University of California) in 2001 , though similar ideas existed in science fiction before then. A recent review discusses various techniques to take smartdust in sensor networks beyond millimeter dimensions to the micrometre level. A typical application scenario is scattering a hundred of these sensors around a building or around a hospital to monitor temperature or humidity, track patient movements, or inform of disasters, such as earthquakes. In the military, they can perform as a remote sensor chip to track enemy movements, detect poisonous gas or radioactivity. The ease and low cost of such applications have raised privacy concerns.” Beyond web 2.0 vast networks of these real time sensors are once possible technology leap of the yet inknown web 3.0.

General concept – What is Souveillance?: is a term from Steve Mann that refers to “bottom up” surveillance using smart dust as opposed to “top down” big brother networks looking at us little people. Here instead activities are recorded from the “perspective of a participant in the activity, typically by way of small portable or wearable recording devices that often stream continuous live video to the Internet.” Remember the impact of the Rodney King video and of all the user generated video content on the web. Now fast forward to a world where a large segment or even a majority of the populice had real time streaming video devices on all the time (no we are not going to discuss the porn angle on this). This has also been called “inverse surveillance”.

Privacy advocates have been debating the merits or horrors of this type of sensor technology. I serve on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Lifeboat Foundation which is dedicated to protecting us from future technological threats through advocacy research and education. They have been having a heated debate on the “paradox of smart dust: we may not live without the greater security provided by smart dust, but many think they could not live with smart dust impinging on our privacy.’

Medical Implications: I have a vision that once this type of low power networked microsensor technology exists it will logically lead to medical sensor technology. Potential uses I see include:

mass screening for infectious disease or bioterror agents. Subjects walking into screening areas could be checked for signature molecules associated with infectious agents. Just as we have metal detectors and now have molecular signature detectors (the litle wipe test for explosives at the airport) we will have such biological screening techology.
The next step will be similar screening for disease states. Metabolomics is one such technology. Metabolomics is the study of the small-molecule metabolite byproducts left behind from cellular processes. In simple terms it’s like examining poop. The concept is that by measuring the collection of all the byproducts of the cells metabolism you can get a snapshot of the physiology of a cell or organism that translates to health. One such sensor is being developed as a breath sensor for disease. This could lead to Star Trek like medical sensors.
Similarly, such technology will lead to individual genetic screening for disease risk using chips that interact with the tiny bits of DNA we shed every time we touch something. Companies commercializing this approach also already exist and have products.
Taking a clue from smart dust we will then inject such sensors into our bodies where thy could circulate in the bloodstream or sit in the abdminal cavity silently sensing for disease, infectious agents, or the DNA or signature molecules of a cancer cell. Alternative chips could exist that sit and slowly release drugs when such cell reappear once a patient is diagnosed.

I will be writing more about the details of these concepts and devices being developed in future posts now that I have introducted the concepts. Let me know what you think!

Retraction From Pointe Conception Medical

Posted on February 15, 2008 by Steven F. Palter, MD

As a practicing physician, consultant to industry and the investment community, and medical technology blogger, my independence is of utmost importance to me.

Pointe Conception Medical issued the following statement today:

“Pointe Conception Medical (PCM) regrets the use of the quote from Dr. Steven Palter in our presentation materials. Dr. Steven Palter did not provide PCM permission to use his name or any type of endorsement from him in any of our promotional materials. Steven Palter is not affiliated in any way with Pointe Conception Medical.”.

New Laparoscopic Device Stops Harpooning of Patients

Posted on February 6, 2008 by Steven F. Palter, MD

While at the Global Congress of Gyn Endoscopy I saw a really neat new device called LapCap designed to reduce the risk of entering the abdomen in laparoscopic surgery.

What is the problem- why is this needed? In laparoscopy the first step where the surgeon gains access the abdominal cavity is often a blind entry step. There is a risk of injury to internal organs such as the bowel, bladder, or blood vessels. While rare, these injuries can be severe or even life threatening. If you want to read more about laparoscopic access and the risks of entry into the abdomen here is a link to an article I wrote for a Master’s Class in Gyn Surgery on this topic.

What is done in standard surgery: The most common method used by gyn surgeons is the insertion of a needle (the veress needle) which fills the abdomen with carbon dioxide gas (called insufflation). Then a tool called a trocar is inserted into this space and the instruments go through this. The needle insertion step is the most dangerous because it is the blind step. various techniques are used including elevation of the abdominal wall to lift it off of and away from the underlying organs expecially the large vessels like the aorta nad vena cava. The second common method is the open or Hasson technique (invented by my good friend Gyn surgeon Harry Hasson) where the surgeon opens a small 10 mm incision and then inseted the trocar. Injuries occur with all known techniques.

The New System: The LapCap is a new system that puts a plastic dome on the abdomen attached to suction that then pulls a full thickness of the abdominal wall high up into it then allowing the veress needle to be inserted into a potentially larger and they claim safer spot. The LapCap device received 510(k) approval from the FDA and is sold by Aragon Surgical. It won an award from the SLS for new device innovation. Here is a video from the company of it in operation. I know surgeons who have used and were quite impressed and I will likley be involved with surgery using it soon. I know that laparoscopic innovator and friend of mine Camran Nezhat is one of their advisors. I will be speaking with him more about his experience.

Potential problems: Two major issues- first statistical proof of demonstration of increased safety is nearly impossible for access devices such as this because the injury it might reduce so very rarely happens. One study on this problem estimated that it would take a study of more than 200,000 people having the operation to adequately demonstrate reduced injuries statistically. Second- one of the major risks for this sort of injury is when the bowel is adherent to the abdominal wall at the site of entry from previous surgery. I would not expeect this device to help at all in this situation because the adherent bowel will be picked up with the abdominal wall. However it is the vessel injuries that ar emost dangerous and this device might reduce the risk of those if it places the needle much farther away.

About the company: They appear to have acquired the device via an acquisistion of starup Verisure. It was reported last month that they “raised $25 million in a Series B round of venture capital with the hopes of having five products on the market within two years. In a statement on Monday, Jan. 7, Aragon said new investors Bay City Capital of San Francisco and Integral Capital Partners of Menlo Park, Calif., joined original investors Delphi Ventures and Onset Ventures, both of Menlo Park. They formed Palo Alto, Calif.-based Aragon in May 2005 to advance radio frequency technology developed at Stanford University Medical School for use in laproscopic and other surgeries. Bay City Capital was the lead investor in the most recent round.”

I have spoken about the use of RFID for surgical and laproscopic procedures for several years and look forward to seeing where they go with it. I know they also have tissue sealing and dividing technology and are part of the Delphi portfolio. I had a phone call with Delphi last year as part of due diligence they were doing for another company and did think highly of them and their approach. More details of the deal are here.

Wireless HDTV- TV Today OR Tomorrow

Posted on January 30, 2008 by Steven F. Palter, MD

Here’s the next installment in my series on HDTV in the OR and the emerging use of HD for endoscopic surgery. Belkin introduced a new device for consumer HD video at CES that uses wireless technology to transmit the signal. In the past the enormous bandwidth of HD precluded the use of wireless transfers.

From what I have been told- the technology was developed by Amimon and is called WHDI. They report on the tech that:

WHDI™ – Wireless High Definition Interface sets a new standard for wireless high-definition video connectivity. It provides a high-quality, uncompressed wireless link which can support delivery of equivalent video data rates of up to 3Gbps (including uncompressed 1080p) in a 40MHz channel in the 5GHz unlicensed band, conforming to FCC regulations. Equivalent video data rates of up to 1.5Gbps (including uncompressed 1080i and 720p) can be delivered on a single 20MHz channel in the 5GHz unlicensed band, conforming to worldwide 5GHz spectrum regulations. Range is beyond 100 feet, through walls, and latency is less than one millisecond.

WHDI™ enables a wireless video link that offers the same functionality, cost and quality as a wired link. Practically all of the hundreds of millions of wired connections between video sources and displays today are based on delivery of uncompressed video. In order to replace these wired links, the wireless interface needs to be uncompressed as well.

The problem with traditional wireless modems for video is that they treat ever data bit equally. This new technology does not. WHDI takes the uncompressed HD video stream and breaks it into elements of importance. The various elements are then mapped onto the wireless channel in a way that give elements with more visual importance a greater share of the channel resources, i.e. they are transmitted in a more robust manner.

I presented research a few years ago on the development of a new endoscope that used distal CMOS imaging chios and distal end LED ilumination. The advantage of this is the ability to eliminate light and power cables once it goes battery powered. The developoment of wireless HD video transmission is vital to make the scopes totally wireless. Some details of this project and wireless power charging are here. The technology could also be used to develop real time image review from pill- cams.

You may want to check out past posts on the use of video compression as another tool enabling wireless OR’s.

New 3D Display Technology

Posted on September 6, 2007 by Steven F. Palter, MD

this sure beats the old system!

Better for Creature Features than the OR

Phillips just demo’d an intriguing display at the Berlin consumer-electronics show. It is an amalgam of 9 x 42-inch displays on a grid creating a 132 inch display that reportedly can display 3D images without the need for glasses.

Why this is so important: 3D display technology is badly needed for endoscopic surgery. In order to see in 3D you need stereo vision which requires 2 separate images taken from slighly different angles and them superimposed. You body does this with your 2 eyes slighly separate on your face. In traditional laparoscopic surgery there is a single telescope and a single camera so all the images are in 2D. Unfortunately, depth perception is lost. How does the surgen operate then? What heppens with training and practice is that your brain picks up and other clues primarily shadowing and touch perception from your hands and the surgeon becomes able to interpolate a 3D space even though all of the visual skills are mising. This is one of the hardest if not the hardest step to learn when I teach surgeons to first perform laparoscopic surgery and some people just have a much harder time than others. Interestingly, with HD displays there is a pseudo-enhancement of depth perception that engineers and visual scientists tell me is due to the enhanced color fidelity and resolution and shadowing which allows the brain to pick up more 3D clues of the space from the 2D image! Still, the lack of true 3D data increases the difficulty of the procedures especially complex ones requiring suturing.

What is available today: Currently there are some attempts to address this limitation. They have required the use of head mounted displays with separate displays for each eye and separate imaging chips or lenses on the scopes but these have been heavy and cumbersome to use. Others such as some of the robotic solutions have immersed the surgeon’s head in a remote 2-panel display station but this also is a very complex solution. For years I have seen many many attempts at no-glasses 3D displays from various companies but all suffered from narrow viewing angles or poor resolution or other design issues.

How this solution works. This is a display technology that they call 2D + depth. In order to generate a 3D image, the display requires a regular 2D representation of the image and a depth-map. This depth-map indicates the distance between each pixel and the viewer. The 2D image and the depth-map are used to create images on the screen, and these images are then merged by the viewer’s brain into a 3D sensation.

Lenticular Screen: The system works with lenses on the screen that provide a slightly different view for each eye (without the red-green glasses of the 50′s). A sheet of transparent lenses, is fixed on an LCD screen. This sheet sends different images to each eye, and so a person sees two images. These two images are combined by our brain, to create a 3D effect.

I’ll have to get ahold of one of these displays to see if it holds promise for the OR…

Docinthemachine Research Featured on 20/20! MedTechno Insights From the Day

Posted on September 6, 2007 by Steven F. Palter, MD

I previously wrote about the upcoming National Geographic Special Inside the Living Body and my work featured in the special. I was delighted when the producers of 20/20 called to request an interview with me on my research featured on the show and my vision of the future technological transformation of medicine. Bob Brown was interested in coming to interview me. They have already posted a description of the upcoming interview and a summary of the show.

They call it an “Unprecedented Journey Inside the Living Body- ‘We’re Seeing Things That We Had Never Seen Before,‘ Says Scientist (that’s me).

On their website they write:

Recent technological advances have allowed for such dramatic and amazing views of the inside of our bodies that watching the footage can feel like you’re in a science fiction film or on an imaginary expedition…In such a science fiction journey, the 1966 film “Fantastic Voyage,” a group of scientists and their submarine were miniaturized so they could be injected into a body in order to eliminate an otherwise unreachable brain clot.

“I use clips from that movie when I lecture about these new technologies,” said Dr. Steven Palter, the medical and scientific director of Gold Coast IVF in Syosset, N.Y. “Now, physicians can actually see the workings of the body and understand it in a way that they never could before.”

Palter, who has a medical technology blog called docinthemachine.com, is a pioneer of methods capable of producing spectacular high-definition surgical images. Palter obtained his footage by advancing well-established procedures that allow doctors to insert cameras through small incisions and view the target areas of their surgeries. He successfully hooked up high-definition cameras and, he said, was awestruck by the results.

“With high definition, we’re seeing things that we had never seen before … with depth perception, clarity and detail … because now it’s enormously clear and magnified. We have views that you don’t get with your naked eye.”

They also write about my autofluorescent laparoscopy research: “New Way of Seeing Ourselves”

The technology used for the National Geographic Channel is also clearly on its way to helping revolutionize medical care. Palter contributed to the development of what’s called an auto-fluorescent laparoscope, which exposes diseased tissue inside the body that a surgeon couldn’t otherwise see.

“Instead of using visible light, it makes the disease fluoresce,” Palter said. “If you look with your naked eye, you see nothing. When you switch on the light and the filters, all of a sudden the disease is glowing green, and you can see disease that’s beyond the resolution of your naked eye.”

The setup

Details and Insights from the Interview: It really was an amazing morning. I have done countless interviews and seminars with the media over the years and this really stood out for me. Perhaps most enjoyable was the genuine interest and fascination with the topic of their correspondent Bob Brown (who was also a first rate nice guy). They showed up at 8AM and took 1.5 hours to dismantle my office and set up the lighting. We started extra early with the fertility patients that day so they could be finished and out the door before the TV crew came in to protect their confidentiality and to not make them feel uncormfortable (always a key issue in my fertility practice Gold Coast IVF).

Directing the shoot

The cameras and the Crew: Being the techno videophile guy that I am I jumped at the chance to talk with independent film crew brought to shoot me. They had 3 cameramen/directors and there were 2 producers from 20/20, Bob Brown the correspondent, and a media relations rep from National Geographic (in case questions came up about their part). They set-up a 2 camera shoot in my office with blazingly hot spot lights to ensure I would be nice and sweaty on camera. They shot in standard BetacamSP. Of course I could not resist to ask them why they did not shoot in HD. They answered that the news shows inthe studios shoot in HD but that in the US all field work is done in SD. This is because there are countless freelancers and crews out there all using different equipment and all waiting for some semblance of an HD standard to evolve before they invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in new HD cameras and editing and risk it being the “wrong format”. Wow- how similar to the confusion in the medical and consumer video sectors! I continued my fact-finding quest and asked about who was using what systems and the relative advantages of each- panasonic sony JVC image sensors, color fidelity, native chip resolution tape vs disk vs solid state recording editing etc etc all trying to gleam insights I could take back to medicine and the OR.

Showing Bob Brown (and cameraman) a Laparoscope

The interview and turning the tables: Bob interviewed me for 2.5 hours until they ran out of film. I was excited to share my excitement and passion for the subject of the future of medicine and surgery and how my work fits into this vision. Bob was interested in the medical technology behind the show. He asked a very wide range of questions from how I thought to merge HD video and surgerr back in 1999 to what I think is more beautiful – the earth from space or the vista of the internal human organs, to how will we pay for these new technology developments. He was interested in everything I was working on and what I thought would have the most impact. We discussed robotic assited surgery, natural orifice surgery (NOTES), augmented reality and head mounted displays, surgical simulators for training and the potential for real-dataset preoperative practice, virtual colonoscopy and 3D/4D ultrasound etc etc.

I had a chance to turn the tables a bit and ask him why they chose this topic and how they felt it would appeal to the lay public. He told me that TV shows like 20/20 they basically track viewers interest levels minute by minute as they shows air. He added that the medical pieces they ran have huge audience ratings and the more real the higher the appeal. We discussed how the netorks know that on shows like CSI it is often the medical technology that draws the audience in. He has a special talent in reporting human interest segments and has an amazing ability to distill down the high tech medicine we discussed and share with non-medical viewers how it will affect their lives.

Sharing the footage: After the interview he wanted to watch some of my HD surgical footage that I shot for National Geographic with the true HD 1080 16:9 system which I fortunately had available on HD XDCAM with a Sony ultrahigh resolution 24″ LCD HD monitor. Both the 20/20 people and the video crew were amazed by the resolution of the images and one of them remarked “If I need surgery I want them to use that“ Being video people the film crew and director’s understanding of the power of HD in the OR was immediate when they saw just a few seconds of the images. I continue to have the same degree of awe and fascination each time I operate with these systems.

Bob Brown was especially interested in my research on the development of autofluorescent laparoscopy and my concept of “FutureVision“- where surgical technology surpasses inate human senses and we watched those videos as well.

They finished off with few minutes of B-roll footage of Bob and I walking and talking in front of the hospital and requests for room cam OR footage and my AF surgery footage(all of which I was happy to share with them).

Bob Brown, the Producers, and the docinthemachine

The 20/20 show airs this Friday September 7th at 10PM on ABC- check it out!

OCR to the Rescue: Device Reads Any Text for Blind

Posted on August 21, 2007 by Steven F. Palter, MD

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 any text or sign and then digitally OCR it and read it outload to the user! Quite a simple concept.

Kurzweil recalls the invention of the First OCR Reader in 1974

“In 1974, computer programs that could recognize printed letters, called optical character recognition (OCR), were capable of handling only one or two specialized type styles. I founded Kurzweil Computer Products, Inc. that year to develop the first OCR program that could recognize any style of print, which we succeeded in doing later that year. So the question then became, ‘What is it good for?’ Like a lot of clever computer software, it was a solution in search of a problem…I had found the problem we were searching for—we could apply our ‘omni-font’ (any font) OCR technology to overcome this principal handicap of blindness.

New System is Portable “The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and Kurzweil Technologies, Inc. (KTI) have created the world’s first portable OCR device, that allows an ordinary page of text to be photographed and subsequently translated into voice. Over the last three decades there have been several computer-based solutions for translating OCR to voice, but none of them are portable.”

Click here for video of the device in action[wmv width="375" height="211"]http://mfile3.akamai.com/12032/asf/kurzweil.download.akamai.com/12032/knfbr/CNN_Device_opens_the_world_for_blind.asf[/wmv]

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