Imaging tech

Superhuman vision may be on the horizon

Contact lenses have traditionally been engineered to help the visually impaired see the world around them more clearly--to attain perfect, or close to perfect, vision.

But why not super vision? Why not a lens that could superimpose holographic driving control panels over a pilot's otherwise normal view? Enable Web surfing on the go? Provide a virtual world for gamers that covers their entire field of vision instead of just a plasma screen?

Engineers at the University of Washington have been asking just that as they manufacture first-gen versions of the bionic eye in the form of contact lenses with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights.

"Conventional contact lenses are polymers formed in specific shapes to correct faulty vision," writes Babak A. Parviz, an associate professor at UW who heads a multi-disciplinary group on electronics in contact lenses, in the September 2009 issue of IEEE's Spectrum. "To turn such a lens into a functional system, we integrate control circuits, communication circuits, and miniature antennas into the lens using custom-built optoelectronic components. Those components will eventually include hundreds of LEDs, which will form images in front of the eye, such as words, charts, and photographs."… Read more

Medical-imaging procedures always worth the risk?

Medical-imaging procedures such as computed-tomography (CT) and myocardial-perfusion scans are up drastically from just 15 years ago, according to a new study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

CT scans alone are up four-fold, according to the study. These "worrisome" radiation doses--as many as 2 percent of cancers could be attributed to radiation during CT scans alone--justify more rigorous scientific scrutiny, according to lead investigator Dr. Reza Fazel at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta:

Unlike the exposure of workers in health care and the nuclear industry, which can be regulated, the exposure of … Read more

Taking some of the guesswork out of giving birth

In 2006, Trig Medical, out of Yokneam, Israel, won an award for its visionary (literally) new system, LaborPro, which provides doctors, nurses, and patients with a better window into the birthing process. Just this month, the company has raised several million dollars in financing, according to Globes in Israel.

With the "noninvasive" sweep of a computerized finger, a miniature sensor on the tip of the finger takes measurements of head station and cervical dilation, while ultrasound imaging tracks the station and position of the fetus.

A radiation-free pelvimetry is also performed by touching four places on the mother'… Read more

Shedding new light on tumors

A new oxygen nanosensor that combines a biopolymer with a light-emitting dye could help identify the most aggressive regions of cancerous tumors, according to a press release by researchers at the University of Virginia.

The material uses polylactic acid as its base--good news for the environment and cost because it is both easy and inexpensive to fabricate in many forms.

Guoqing Zhang, a chemistry doctoral candidate, alongside Cassandra Fraser, a chemistry professor, combined a corn-based biopolymer with a dye that is both fluorescent (the immediate illumination of photon re-emission) and phosphorescent (a slower illumination that appears as an afterglow):

Zhang … Read more

Is using guinea pigs a thing of the past?

Wired weighs in on the ever-improving field of surgical simulators in its August issue. The obvious point of the story is that virtual reality is finally enabling us to take the guinea pig out of trial and error; any mistakes made by those in training will result in a failed grade, or a do-over, as opposed to the possibly nightmarish side effects that come with botched surgery.

Also--and this reminds me of the main difference between playing poker on my computer versus at a table--virtual surgery happens a lot faster. With a strong cup of coffee and enough RAM, a … Read more

TruFocals: New glasses for the fidgety

Twenty years in the making, physicist and inventor Stephen Kurtin's adjustable focus eyeglasses--with the cute, Web 2.0-ey name TruFocals--are finally here:

Each "lens" is actually a set of two lenses, one flexible and one firm. The flexible lens (near the eye) has a transparent distensible membrane attached to a clear rigid surface. The pocket between them holds a small quantity of crystal clear fluid. As you move the slider on the bridge, it pushes the fluid and alters the shape of the flexible lens. Changing the shape changes the correction. This mimics the way the … Read more

Toshiba plans 64GB SDXC memory cards for 2010

The new SDXC specification for faster, higher-capacity flash cards emerged in January, and Toshiba now promises the cards themselves will begin arriving about a year afterward.

Toshiba said Monday it expects to be the first to bring SDXC cards to market, with testing samples of a 64GB version shipping in November and the real thing shipping in the spring of 2010. Those dates will be key moments in what doubtless will be a gradual transition away from the prevailing SDHC standard.

SDXC backers promise higher capacities and data transfer speeds for SDXC, which is important for devices such as video … Read more

MIT develops camera-like fabric

And you thought it was a problem when folks went into the locker room toting cell phones with cameras.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a fabric made of a mesh of light-sensitive fibers that collectively act like a rudimentary camera. The fibers, which each can detect two frequencies of light, produced signals that when amplified and processed by a computer reproduced an image of a smiley face near the mesh.

"This is the first time that anybody has demonstrated that a single plane of fibers, or 'fabric,' can collect images just like a camera but … Read more

Phase One to absorb high-end Kodak photo assets

A new tremor on Thursday traversed a photography world already shaken up by the arrival of digital technology as Phase One, a Copenhagen-based company that caters to professional photographers, announced a plan to acquire some high-end photography assets from Eastman Kodak.

To nobody's surprise, Kodak wound down its 35mm Kodachrome film product on Monday. In the rarefied realm of medium-format photography, where film sizes are much larger, and the demand for quality is much higher, the change to the digital era has been equally jarring.

Phase One, though, was digital from the outset, and it's become a force … Read more