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A community for healthcare technology innovators hosted by Dr Michael Dahlweid.

Controlling Your Computer With Your Eyes

Millions of people suffering from multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, muscular dystrophy, spinal cord injuries or amputees could soon interact with their computers and surroundings using just their eyes, thanks to a new device that costs less than £40.

Composed from off-the-shelf materials, the new device can work out exactly where a person is looking by tracking their eye movements, allowing them to control a cursor on a screen just like a normal computer mouse.

The technology comprises an eye-tracking device and “smart” software that have been presented July 13, in IOP Publishing’s Journal of Neural Engineering. Researchers from Imperial College London demonstrated its functionality by getting a group of people to play the classic computer game Pong without any kind of handset. In addition users were able to browse the web and write emails “hands-off.”

A video of somebody using the device to play Pong can be viewed here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zapK5wvYU84)

The GT3D device is made up of two fast video game console cameras, costing less than £20 each, that are attached, outside of the line of vision, to a pair of glasses that cost just £3. The cameras constantly take pictures of the eye, working out where the pupil is pointing, and from this the researchers can use a set of calibrations to work out exactly where a person is looking on the screen.

Even more impressively, the researchers are also able to use more detailed calibrations to work out the 3D gaze of the subjects — in other words, how far into the distance they were looking. It is believed that this could allow people to control an electronic wheelchair simply by looking where they want to go or control a robotic prosthetic arm.

To demonstrate the effectiveness of the eye-tracker, the researchers got subjects to play the video game Pong. In this game, the subject used his or her eyes to move a bat to hit a ball that was bouncing around the screen — a feat that is difficult to accomplish with other read-out mechanisms such as brain waves (EEG).

Dr Aldo Faisal, Lecturer in Neurotechnology at Imperial’s Department of Bioengineering and the Department of Computing, is confident in the ability to utilise eye movements given that six of the subjects, who had never used their eyes as a control input before, could still register a respectable score within 20 per cent of the able bodied users after just 10 minutes of using the device for the first time.

The commercially viable device uses just one watt of power and can transmit data wirelessly over Wi-Fi or via USB into any Windows or Linux computer.

The GT3D system has also solved the ‘Midas touch problem’, allowing users to click on an item on the screen using their eyes, instead of a mouse button.

This problem has previously been resolved by staring at an icon for a prolonged period or blinking; however, the latter is part of our natural behaviour and happens unintentionally. Instead, the researchers calibrated the system so that a simple wink would represent a mouse click, which only occurs voluntarily unlike the blink.

Dr Faisal said: “Crucially, we have achieved two things: we have built a 3D eye tracking system hundreds of times cheaper than commercial systems and used it to build a real-time brain machine interface that allows patients to interact more smoothly and more quickly than existing invasive technologies that are tens of thousands of times more expensive.

“This is frugal innovation; developing smarter software and piggy-backing existing hardware to create devices that can help people worldwide independent of their healthcare circumstances.”

The ‘you can’t hide your emotions’ glasses

O2Amps, eyewear that amplifies one’s view of the emotions and health visible in the color and palor of other people’s skin……

This cool gizmo will shade the world but not the social, being the first sun-glasss to be kept on to see other people better.

But beyond this ‘social’ application, there are many potential ways how this technology can be used in helathcare, too - and the company behind O2Amp created something already:

– (i) a vein-finder, or oxygenation-isolator, that amplifies perception of oxygenation modulations under the skin (and eliminates perception of variations in the concentration of hemoglobin),
– (ii) a trauma-detector, or hemoglobin-concentration-isolator, that amplifies perception of hemoglobin concentrations under the skin (and eliminates perception of variations in oxygenation), and
– (iii) a general clinical enhancer, or oxygenation-amplifier, that combines the best features of the first two; it eliminates neither signal (i.e., it retains perception of both variation in Hemoglobin oxygenation and concentration), and only amplifies perception of oxygenation.

So, next time you see your partner/boss/buddy….and he/she does not want to tip up their sun-glasses….you better watch out.

scientific article describing the technology

the company behind the idea

Healthcare Organisations and Social Media - the right prescription?

Machine weaving technique applied to making human blood vessels

sciencecenter:

Manufacturing fresh human blood vessels is important - for example, one could replace the ravaged veins of dialysis patients - but technically has thus far proved a nightmare. There are a variety of different approaches that biomedical engineers have tried, but one technique might just be the grossest - and most innovative.

For engineers, machine weaving is old hat; it’s a technique that dates back to before the Industrial Revolution. Cytograft Tissue Engineering have replaced thread on the loom with strips of cultured connective tissue, and - voila! - they claim to have a promising approach to the blood vessel problem. The synthetic vessels are not biodegradable, but instead become populated and accepted by the host cells. And best of all, early tests show they stand up to repeated puncture.

(Source: technologyreview.com)

sciencecenter: What’s in a Twinkie? Great infographic from Newsweek, which accompanies the article This Is Why We’re Fat! by Gary Taubes. It’s a provocative article challenging the conventional wisdom on how we should fight the obesity epidemic. Click through the image to embiggen.  Mmmm. Just the look of that sodium acid pyrophosphate gets my mouth watering.

sciencecenter:

What’s in a Twinkie?

Great infographic from Newsweek, which accompanies the article This Is Why We’re Fat! by Gary Taubes. It’s a provocative article challenging the conventional wisdom on how we should fight the obesity epidemic. Click through the image to embiggen. 

Mmmm. Just the look of that sodium acid pyrophosphate gets my mouth watering.

"A new study from Social Studies of Science… reveals that when men chair committees that select scientific awards recipients, males win the awards more than 95% of the time. This new study also reports that while in the past two decades women have begun to win more awards for their scientific achievements, compared to men, they win more service and teaching awards and fewer prestigious scholarly awards than would be expected based on their representation in the nomination pool."

—

“Women’s scientific achievements often overlooked and undervalued”

This is a problem. The authors of the study don’t argue that there’s a sexist conspiracy to prevent the ascent of women, and I wouldn’t either. But the findings mean that we have to take into account the bias that undoubtedly exists in our society, and which scientists aren’t immune from. 

h/t justaturnofhtedial

(via sciencecenter)

(via sciencecenter)

smarterplanet: Another reason to buy gold: nanoparticles help to kill brain tumors — Engadget Stanford scientists have used lab-made gold nanoparticles to highlight malignant tissue in the brain, making it easier for surgeons to cut out tumors while leaving healthy bits in tact. Measuring just five millionths of an inch in diameter, these tiny glistening orbs are injected into the patient and then left to bleed out through leaky blood vessels in parts of the brain that have been damaged by the disease. They then get stuck in the bad tissue itself, marking it out for the scalpel when viewed with the right type of imaging. It’s not totally new — we’ve actually seen gold nanotech deployed against the Big C in stem cellsbefore, but better to be useful than avant-garde. [Brain image via Shutterstock]

smarterplanet:

Another reason to buy gold: nanoparticles help to kill brain tumors — Engadget

Stanford scientists have used lab-made gold nanoparticles to highlight malignant tissue in the brain, making it easier for surgeons to cut out tumors while leaving healthy bits in tact. Measuring just five millionths of an inch in diameter, these tiny glistening orbs are injected into the patient and then left to bleed out through leaky blood vessels in parts of the brain that have been damaged by the disease. They then get stuck in the bad tissue itself, marking it out for the scalpel when viewed with the right type of imaging. It’s not totally new — we’ve actually seen gold nanotech deployed against the Big C in stem cellsbefore, but better to be useful than avant-garde.

[Brain image via Shutterstock]

Social Media in Healthcare

smarterplanet: 3D Printed Designer Drugs Scientists are pioneering the use of 3D printers to create drugs and other chemicals at the University of Glasgow. Researchers have used a £1,250 system to create a range of organic compounds and inorganic clusters – some of which are used to create cancer treatments. Longer term, the scientists say the process could be used to make customised medicines. “We are showing that you can take chemical constituents, pass them through a printer and create what is effectively a chemical synthesiser in which the reaction occurs allowing you to get out something different at the end,” researcher Mark Symes told the BBC. “It’s almost like a layer cake – you print the last reactionary agent first and then build other chemical layers above, finally adding a liquid at the top. The liquid goes to layer one making a new molecule which goes to the next layer creating another and so on until at the bottom you get your prescription drug out.” via hypna:

smarterplanet:

3D Printed Designer Drugs

Scientists are pioneering the use of 3D printers to create drugs and other chemicals at the University of Glasgow.

Researchers have used a £1,250 system to create a range of organic compounds and inorganic clusters – some of which are used to create cancer treatments.

Longer term, the scientists say the process could be used to make customised medicines.

“We are showing that you can take chemical constituents, pass them through a printer and create what is effectively a chemical synthesiser in which the reaction occurs allowing you to get out something different at the end,” researcher Mark Symes told the BBC.

“It’s almost like a layer cake – you print the last reactionary agent first and then build other chemical layers above, finally adding a liquid at the top. The liquid goes to layer one making a new molecule which goes to the next layer creating another and so on until at the bottom you get your prescription drug out.”

via hypna:

smarterplanet: Children who live in walkable areas, with a child-friendly park nearby and access to healthy food have 59% lower odds of being obese. More on This Big City. via thisbigcity:

smarterplanet:

Children who live in walkable areas, with a child-friendly park nearby and access to healthy food have 59% lower odds of being obese. More on This Big City.

via thisbigcity:

(Source: thisbigcity)