In Depth: 7 high tech medical gadgets that just might save your life
Everyone likes to play doctors and nurses. Patients and surgeons? Not so much, unless you're some kind of sicko or Jigsaw from Saw.
Luckily your actual hospitals have moved on apace since the chloroform, rusty saw and sawdust days.
Now you'll find all kinds of high tech instruments that'll poke, prod, slice and dice you in more ways you can possibly imagine.
Now just slip this green gown on and lie on that comfy table. Nurse! The two-handed saw, please.
1. daVinci Si HD System
The trouble with humans is that they're all icky and squelchy inside which is why surgeons are increasingly turning to robots to do the dirty work for them.
The da Vinci Si System from Intuitive Surgical helps that happen by giving doctors a high definition 3D view of your bits and bobs, while multiple robot arms armed with scissors, scalpels and other horror movie nasties go to work.
And just like a very gory games console, the da Vinci Si System has a two-player mode so two surgeons can have a go at once. Devices like the da Vinci Si System offer all kinds of possibilities to medics, including remote surgery where doctors in one country work on the patient lying in hospital in another, as happened with the Lindbergh Operation last year.
2. CyberKnife
Now this is more like it. The Accuray CyberKnife is a massive medical instrument that does away with scalpels and drills in favour of targeting bits of your body with highly focused beams of radiation. Yes, we said radiation.
Because it's non-invasive, the CyberKnife helps patients recover more quickly from the effects of surgery that the other more old-fashioned kind, although patients usually have to undergo several treatments to totally eradicate tumours.
You can go under the CyberKnife at several locations across the UK, including the aptly named CyberKnife Centre London and at The London Clinic, which has just opened a new £80 million specialist cancer treatment centre. The Novalis Tx by Varian Medical Systems offers similar benefits.
3. InnerCool RTx Endovascular System
Most of us try to avoid hypothermia like the plague (medical term), but Philips InnerCool RTx system actually does the opposite - chiefly to help neuro and cardiac surgeons work on patients in the operating theatre - something known as Temperature Modulation Therapy.
Instead of old-fashioned ice packs and blankets, InnerCool RTx cools patients from the inside using a catheter with temperature sensor, which is placed next to the femoral artery below the heart.
In practice, the InnerCool RTx works a bit like a heat exchanger - reducing body heat by transferring it to a cooling cart using a saline solution. All of this is especially good news for brain surgeons, who can keep their patients conscious and responsive while they work on them.
4. Olympus VisiGlide
There's no easy way to put this. Surgeons dealing with tummy troubles often resort to endoscopy - a kind of medical procedure that ends up with them sticking a tube up into a body cavity (your nose, mouth, bum) with all kinds of cameras, scalpels, clamps and other implements on the end.
The Olympus VisiGlide is more specialised kind of instrument designed to make access to the pancreatic and bile ducts easier. Measuring just 0.025-inches in diameter, it's made from a kink-resistant super elastic alloy and covered with a hydrophilic coating, which makes it easier to move around. Thank goodness for that.
5. PillCam
If you're feeling queasy at the thought of having a regular endoscopy, then why not try the PillCam instead? Shaped like a medicine capsule, this 11mm x 26mm device slips down your throat with glug of water and enables surgeons to get a good look at your insides without having to poke you up the bum or open you up using a knife.
Maker GivenImaging offers three different variants to surgeons, enabling it to detect things like internal bleeding, bowel tumours and Crohn's Disease. Eight hours after you swallow the PillCam it pops back out again. We'll leave it to you to guess how.
6. Siemens SOMATOM Definition Flash
Dicky ticker? The Siemens SOMATOM Definition Flash CT scanner can find out what's wrong in less than half a heartbeat. It uses a very low dose of radiation to image your heart - and you don't even need to be taking beta blockers or hold your breath while it works. In fact the scanner can image your whole chest region in less than 0.6 seconds - and there's already one example doing its thing in a UK hospital. That's another load off, eh?
7. Antenna Pill
Also trying the high tech pill route is the University of Florida, which has come up with the Antenna Pill - a capsule that has a dose of your medicine at one end and a tiny radio microchip at the other.
Swallow the pill and the non-toxic chip transmits a signal to a monitor around your neck, which it's hoped, will eventually be built-in to mobile phones and / or a wristwatch so doctors and family members can tell when you've had your medicine. The Antenna Pill is currently at the prototype stage. Check out the video at redOrbit.
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Review: Samsung N220
Samsung has released a large number of netbooks to critical acclaim and we're often impressed by the quality on offer, although some models have been hampered by a disappointing battery life. The N220 succeeds in addressing this issue and the result is a highly usable and portable machine.
The design is stylish and features very little Samsung branding – a massive reduction from the branding that covered some previous models. A thick layer of plastic covers the lid and helps to protect the netbook, although it does manage to quickly attract dirt and fingerprints.
Inside, the palm-rest flexes a little under pressure, but nothing significant. The isolated-key style keyboard stretches the width of the chassis and is perfect for touch-typing, although it's easy to accidentally hit the Page Up and Page Down buttons when using the arrow keys.
The touchpad is a little small, but this makes it hard to knock by accident when typing and the glide action is smooth. A narrow bar beneath the pad acts as the mouse buttons and this works well, although it isn't as firm as we'd have liked.
Portablility is this netbook's true strength. While the dimensions and weight are similar to the other machines, the 575-minute battery life beats just about every netbook around. With this kind of longevity, you can easily work all day on a single charge.
The screen is another highlight, with images appearing bright and vibrant, thanks to the inclusion of LED backlighting. The netbook can comfortably be used in bright conditions, due to the anti-glare TFT display, which minimises reflections and suits outdoor use.
HyperSpace
Samsung has included HyperSpace 'instant-on' software. By pressing F6 as the machine boots up, the user can select to load the simplified HyperSpace interface instead of the Windows 7 operating system for fast access to the internet. However, netbooks usually boot to Windows in well under a minute, which greatly reduces the need for such an option.
Speedy 802.11n Wi-Fi and standard 10/100 Ethernet provide network connectivity, while Bluetooth is also included for sharing files with devices such as mobile phones. Three USB ports and a VGA port, as well as a 3-in-1 card reader, round off the features.
The Samsung N220 is a well built and stylish machine with a truly amazing battery life. Combined with the bright screen and strong usability, this is an all-round excellent netbook that we highly recommend.
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Review: MSI Wind U160
Originally started as a motherboard and graphics card manufacturer in 1986, MSI has since branched out into the laptop and netbook market. The Wind U160 is an excellent machine which ticks all the right boxes and excels when it comes to portability.
The netbook boasts a fantastic battery life of 518 minutes, keeping you productive on the road for over eight hours. This provides you with a lot of flexibility while you're on the move, and also makes the netbook more environmentally friendly than some of the other machines here, as you won't be charging it as much. At only 1.3kg, this is also one of the lighter machines to feature such an impressive battery.
Being a shiny machine, the netbook attracts smears and fingerprints, and the chassis is quickly covered. While most laptop manufacturers are contractually obliged to include Microsoft and Intel stickers on the palm-rest, MSI has unfortunately gone a big step further and coated the surface in stickers describing the included warranty and other system information.
We found the stickers aren't easily removable and the netbook's look is cheapened considerably as a result.
Nevertheless, the machine's usability is admirable. The widescreen 10-inch display is not the most vibrant or bright, but it is more than capable of displaying office work, as well as your movies and photos.
The keyboard – sitting at a comfortable angle thanks to the large battery – uses the isolated-key style and is generally excellent. The keys are comfortably spread out, and the typing action is very firm and reassuring.
The mottled touchpad is also great, and we didn't brush it once while typing, meaning there's no erratic cursor behaviour to worry about.
Integrated web cam
Networking is pretty standard and the integrated webcam will allow you to make video calls across the web. A nice touch is the face-recognition software bundled with the netbook.
This teaches the webcam to recognise your face when you log on, removing the necessity for a password. The netbook will also lock when your face hasn't been recognised in front of the device, providing an extra layer of security for your data.
Overall, we were very impressed with the MSI Wind U160. The stickers that plaster the palm-rest are unfortunate, and detract from what is otherwise a nice looking machine, but otherwise the features, usability and portability on offer thoroughly impressed us.
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Guide: How to add a Mail notifier in OS X
One of the problems of always being connected to the internet is that it's easy to get distracted. With various online applications and services demanding you interact with them throughout the day, your attention can quickly wander, and before you know it an hour's gone by.
Email is one of the worst things for this, and that's partly down to Apple's minimalism when it comes to email notification. Some email clients, such as Microsoft Entourage, provide a system-wide notification window that pops up in the corner of your screen when new email arrives.
Within the window you're given an overview of the incoming email, which consists of the sender and the subject line, and you can then make the decision whether or not to open the email itself and read what you've been sent.
By comparison, Apple Mail merely updates its Dock icon badge – so you know how many unread emails you have at any one time, but have no idea what they are.
Seconds lost
The problem from a 'getting things done' perspective is that you never know how important the next email is going to be. If you're waiting for a specific email and a new one arrives, Mail 'forces' you to check the app itself to see new messages.
At best, seconds are lost in switching to the app and deleting an email or two; however, many people find themselves regularly sucked into a kind of email black hole, wasting time dealing with things that would have better been dealt with later.
But by installing a handy third-party add-on, you can bring proper, usable notification to Mail – and it needn't cost you anything. As already noted, the point behind mail notification is efficiency. The thinking is that Mail should stay hidden until you need to use it. This minimises distraction, reduces the threat of procrastination, and enables you to get on with your work, rather than dipping in and out of email every few minutes.
We have chosen four different addons, and Macs with Panther through to Snow Leopard are covered by at least one app. However, you can do more to make your email experience efficient.
In Mail's General preferences, you can reduce the frequency with which Mail checks for messages, if you can get away with doing so. Also, if you regularly communicate with specific people for work purposes, consider creating a smart mailbox to contain messages from them and target notifiers at it.
That way, you'll see (and read, depending on your choice of notification add-on) your most important messages at a glance and as soon as they arrive, but other email won't distract you, and will be held in Mail until you have enough time to deal with a bunch of messages in one go.
The add-ons covered in this tutorial are free, apart from MiniMail, which costs $12.95 (about £8) – although the other projects accept donations if you enjoy using a particular product. For more information about the notifiers, visit the following websites:
Mail.appetizer
Growl and GrowlMail
MiniMail
Herald
01. Installing add-ons
The Mail add-on/bundles shown here all have installers, and options are set via panes in Mail's preferences.
Before installation, quit Mail and ensure the add-on is compatible with your version of Mac OS X. Note: GrowlMail also requires Growl to be installed.
Add-ons are mostly well-behaved, but install many and clashes can happen, so we suggest using only one notifier. To quickly test several, you can use uninstallers, but it's quicker to manually manage bundles.
Quit Mail and go to ~/Library/Mail/. You should see folders named Bundles and Bundles (disabled). If the latter doesn't exist, create it. Drag items from Bundles to Bundles (disabled) to disable them next time Mail's launched.
In rare cases (notably after system upgrades), add-ons might fail to work or install. If so, quit Mail, open Terminal, type defaults write com.apple.mail EnableBundles -bool YES and press Return. If things still don't work, type a second line in Terminal (followed by Return): defaults write com.apple.mail BundleCompatibilityVersion X (replacing X with 4 for Snow Leopard, 3 for Leopard and 2 for Tiger).
02. Mail.appetizer
A bare-bones Mail.appetizer exists for Mac OS X 10.3, but more recent versions offer more functionality. At the time of writing, Mail.appetizer for Snow Leopard is in development. Avoid it until an official release arrives, but if you've an older system, it's the best notifier.
Post-install, enable Mail.appetizer via Mail's preferences, and use the Mailboxes menu to define mailboxes you want notifications for. Options also exist for amending the preview window's behaviour and look. Change settings and the preview updates accordingly.
The window can be resized and positioned, ready for use – place it at the bottom-right of the screen, so it's not a distraction when new mail's received. When new mail arrives, Mail.appetizer's window appears and cycles through messages. Mouse over the window to 'pause' cycling. You can then use the buttons at the window's foot.
In turn, these close the preview window, delete the displayed email, open the message in Mail, and mark the email as read. The Open message preference determines whether messages opened from the preview window appear in a separate Mail window or Mail's Message Viewer.
03. Herald
Herald is a Mail.appetizer clone for Snow Leopard, created because Mail.appetizer for Mac OS X 10.6 was taking so long to appear.
After installing Mail.appetizer, enable it in Mail's preferences. Tabs provide access to options: General has settings for mail viewing and preview-window hiding; Appearance enables you to change how the preview window looks; and Mailboxes sets which mailboxes Herald previews email from.
In use, Herald works like Mail.appetizer - its window enables you to read incoming mail and perform actions. In turn, these are: delete, junk, reply, view and mark as read.
But there are important differences: Herald's timer doesn't work well, so set Automatically hide notifications to Never; hide Mail and it reappears when Herald's preview window appears, so minimise Mail's Message Viewer to the Dock instead of hiding the app; and there's no live preview for Herald's appearance, so set its position when new email arrives.
04. GrowlMail
If you've system-wide notifier Growl installed, GrowlMail enables you to use it for Mail. Via the GrowlMail pane in Mail's preferences, set how notifications work and which accounts you want Growl to show notifications for.
On receiving new email, the sender and subject for each will be shown in preview windows, which 'stack' from your screen's top-right. Growl's appearance is amended using the Growl System Preferences pane.
05. MiniMail
Unlike other notifiers, temporarily shown when new Mail arrives, MiniMail's designed to be permanently on-screen, much like the iTunes Mini Player. After installation, use MiniMail's preferences to set whether double-clicking messages unzooms the mini window or shows a single message window.
A checkbox also enables you to set MiniMail to appear on top of other windows. In use, click a Mail Viewer zoom button (the green one) to switch the window between standard and mini modes.
In mini mode, you get previews of unread mail and use the arrows to move between messages. The action button at the window's top-right provides access to all your common Mail commands.
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Exclusive: Interview: How OLPC plans to give 30 million laptops to Africa by 2015
One Laptop per Child (OLPC) has recently announced an exciting new partnership in East Africa, with newly-ambitious plans to deliver 30 million laptops to primary school children across the region by 2015.
The new partnership between OLPC and the East African Community (EAC) is now looking at ways of raising the large amounts of money required to fund the laptop scheme over the coming five years.
EAC represents the governments of Tanzania, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda and Burundi.
Massively ambitious program
"This is a very ambitious project for which we will have to partner with various people and institutions to mobilise and fund the resources required to meet our objectives by 2015," according to Ambassador Juma Mwapachu, secretary general of the EAC.
OLPC CEO Walter De Brouwer explains the group's philosophy
Following this latest news, TechRadar spoke with OLPC's European CEO, Walter De Brouwer to find out more about these latest developments to provide some of the world's poorest communities with affordable laptop technology dedicated to the needs of primary age children.
TechRadar: Can you tell us a little bit more about the new partnership with the East African Community (EAC)?
Walter De Brouwer: We already have a 'champion' country in that region, which is Rwanda. President Kagame has committed himself to this. He has really been a visionary president for OLPC. Now, as he leads the East African Community, he has been talking to all of the other countries involved (Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Burundi) and encouraging them all to have the same level of commitment to the OLPC project.
OLPC XO-3.0 The new tablet PC is currently under development
TR: It is both a highly exciting and massive commitment to say that you want to deliver 30 million laptops in the next five years.
WDB: Yes, well if you are talking about one-to-one computing and you look at the number of kids in the region, then that is the amount that you arrive at. So spacing it over a period of five years is certainly doable. We have done the calculations and if you look at giving one child a laptop – and take into consideration all the necessary server and connectivity costs – then it would come to less than $1 a week over a five-year period.
Rugged tablet De Brouwer expects XO-3.0 to arrive by 2012
So if you spread it out like that – and we have institutions that can help us do this like the EU, like the World Bank and many others – then you are really setting up the 'intellectual infrastructure' across the region.
TR: So what is that $1 a week that you mentioned? How do you calculate that?
WDB: Well we calculate that you would need $250 per child to provide them with an XO laptop (inclusive of deployment costs, electricity, servers, connectivity and so on). So if you are budgeting for a $1 a week per child then you are really on target there, because you have to take those things like electrification and connectivity into account.
Touchscreen kid's PC OLPC is making a rugged new device
These are problems, but they are not insurmountable – as we have already seen in some African countries. There is the willpower, if something happens, they put in electricity. And there are always e-government services that we can adapt for improved connectivity. As long as things move – it is the law of increasing returns.
TR: Practically, in terms of who is going to raise those funds, the EAC has apparently already contacted President Obama to see if the US can provide financial aid. Who else are you working with? Who or what are the other partners that can provide this money needed to make it happen?
WDB: Well apart from the US, we are also asking for help from the EU, where there is a new Commissioner for Development – so we are trying to see what is possible there. Also, we are working with the individual member states of the EU, to see if they can help. If some member states support us, then the EU supports us through their aid programs. We think that combining all of these efforts should find funding for the initiative.
TR: And what are the long-term benefits for the US and the EU to invest in OLPC – to the degree that you require?
WDB: Well, let's first be clear. It is not investing 'in' OLPC, it is an investment in one-to-one computing. It is basically setting up the educational infrastructure. The problem that we have in several countries in Africa is that you really have to think a bit beyond the laptop, beyond the computer itself, in terms of – what do we have to do? There are vast amounts of land where there is no schooling, where there are no teachers, no buildings – how are we going to try to solve this over the course of a couple of years? It requires a completely different approach.
What OLPC thinks is that 'education' should be replaced by 'learning' – and that by giving each child a laptop and organising this we are also counting on community involvement, that something else should come from this. We want to start these developments, because otherwise nothing will happen.
TR: You've mentioned the importance of Rwanda to the development of OLPC in Africa. Why is this?
WDB: Well, Rwanda is very important. It has been our first country in Africa and we have a strong commitment to do well there. Our learning centre in Kigali that is ran by [ex MIT Media Lab professor] David Cavallo and his team. It is an enormous deployment, we are looking at two million kids in Rwanda in five years.
TR: So presuming that you can manage to raise the funds and look to produce that number of XO laptops, do you have the manufacturing capacity to deal with that?
WDB: Manufacturing capacity is a luxury. We now manufacture with Quanta in Shanghai. If the funds come in and we tell them that we are going to need a hell of a lot more computers, Quanta is the biggest laptop producer in the world, so they can find a way.
OLPC original the first XO was dogged by manufacturing issues
TR: I suppose the difference is that because OLPC is an education project and not a laptop company – is that a fair point?
WDB: Yes. And of course this is something that we explain every day. But if you look at it from a provisional point of view, then some people that don't know us, when they first look at us they think, "oh, these guys are box movers." But the laptop itself isn't even that important in our vision.
The OLPC difference "An education initiative, not a laptop company"
TR: Commercial tech and laptop companies such as Intel and Lenovo and Dell all have their own 'Corporate Social Responsibility' initiatives in developing countries. They seem to favour approaches that bring Microsoft Windows-based PCs and other systems that are used in the west to developing countries. Those companies think that is a more productive strategy...
WDB: Well this is post-colonial thinking. OLPC's focus is on primary education, from six to 12 years old. Those children are not going to need to do PowerPoint. Of course, a company thinks of a market for its products – so they are more and more thinking in terms of office-training. But of course you cannot treat kids like that.
OLPC screen tech: Pixel Qi is providing sunlight-friendly displays
You know, these kids are full of wonder. You see the amazement in their eyes when they first touch a laptop. And then going on the internet, where the rest of the world is! Seeing them make music on the net. Making little games, where they learn to program in Logo. Sending mails to each other. Teaching them how to put a video on YouTube… these are all very, very important skills for them. This is the future. This is what they should be learning. Not Excel and PowerPoint. This is a learning project, we are not about preparing them for office work.
And also, if you look at those types of office applications, then you have to think about what we all used three years ago – which was completely different. And what did we all use six years ago? It was entirely different!
Kids at play: Primary schools don't want PowerPoint!
So these kids who are six – when they are 12 they will have six years of computer experience and we just cannot know right now how they will think or what they will do. There is no telling what they will do. But it is not going to be PowerPoint! [laughs]
Nicholas Negroponte [OLPC founder] has always said that "when the mission becomes a market, then we are ready to leave" but we are in countries where right now there is no market, I can assure you. Where we go, I have never seen Intel or Microsoft.
TR: So this latest deal may well be that 'tipping point' that you need in order to start delivering millions more laptops to primary school kids in Africa?
WDB: Yes, every idea has its tipping point. And from then onwards, consensus builds, it gets accepted and people that were previously against it soon forget that they were even against it.
I've seen it happen over the last two years in South America. But of course it is easier there. You have more English-speakers, better electrification and connectivity.
The future of tablets? OLPC's next machine looks impressive
TR: Should you secure the funding and provide thirty million machines to East Africa by 2015 – what do you think the effect will be? What will happen by 2015, should you be successful?
WDB: Well we will be responsible for one of the goals of the United Nation's Millenium Development Goals, to improve education and end poverty by 2015.
Apart from that it will level the playing field, because it cannot be the case that India and China (which all have their problems) are continuing to move up, where African is still continuing to move downwards. Something radical has to happen.
This could be the way to leapfrog that, which is of course the dream of every idealist. But I see these kids, when they first use our laptops in Africa. At first they are clumsy with them, there is no hand-to-eye co-ordination. Then when you come back a couple of months later, they are as good as we are! They are navigating through the software
TR: There is a lot of interest right now in OLPC's plans for its XO-3.0 tablet PC concept machine, following the recent launch of Apple's iPad in the US.
WDB: Yes, we are right now at the XO-1.5 which is our latest machine and is a lot faster and which uses a VIA processor and you can have 4GB or 8GB internally. Our next one, the XO-1.75 will use an ARM processor, which will change the power consumption dramatically. And soon we will be able to have the dream, which is to have the complete computer on a chip. Which will finally get the cost of the machines down to a $100 or less and use far less power.
My expectation for the XO-3.0 tablet is that we will change everything.
Changing everything Will OLPC finally get the cash it needs?
TR: So it will have an iPad-style Pixel Qi touchscreen, that lets you flick between an e-ink display and a traditional backlit LCD type display?
WDB: Well, this is something that Nicholas is working on right now in secret. One thing I can say is that ruggedness will have to be built in, which will be a key feature of the XO 3.0 tablet.
See more on OLPCs XO-3.0 concept over at laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/xo3.shtml.
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