Tag: Google glasses

Google Glass makes its way into a Tennessee operating room

| July 10, 2014

A surgeon in Nashville is looking into the various benefits that can be brought to an O.R. by the augmented reality headset.

A Nashville surgeon is currently investigating some of the ways in which his wearing Google Glass while in the operating room will be able to benefit him – as a surgeon – as well as the patient.

This augmented reality headset has been greatly embraced by the medical community.

Despite the fact that Google Glass is still in a limited release phase, the doctors and others in the medical community have been coming up with a large range of different potential uses for these and similar augmented reality devices. Although the public has had mixed responses to the devices, doctors appear to be ready to wear them and discover what they can offer in terms of efficiency, accuracy, and other potential benefits.

A company in Nashville is now taking the use of Google Glass in hospitals to the next level.

augmented reality glasses google glassOctovis Inc. believes that there could be massive implications for the augmented reality technology in health care. It is now undergoing its “14-week startup boot camp” along with another company based in Nashville, Jumpstart Foundry, which is a business accelerator. This project is meant to test some of the various applications for the mobile technology among a handful of physicians.

Sanat Dixit, one of the participating physicians, is a neurosurgeon who has been working within the region for four years. He has now become the first doctor in Tennessee to bring the augmented reality device into the operating room. Moreover, he is also one of the only doctors in the entire Southeast to actually use this cutting edge mobile tech for professional reasons.

While the doctor is not permitted to reveal the name of the hospital in which surgeries have now been performed while using Google Glass – as the facility has yet to create an official policy regarding the use of this technology and wants to ensure that the privacy of its patients remains protected – what is known is that at least two procedures have been completed and it looks as though other facilities will soon be discussing similar efforts in the not too distant future.

Wearable technology creates all new employer privacy struggles

| June 30, 2014

As helpful as wearables can be, they are generating a headache for business IT departments.

A leading law firm has released a statement that has provided a considerable amount of insight regarding a new view of wearable technology, which has to do with the privacy headaches that are being generated for employers.

Smartwatches and augmented reality glasses are now stepping into the workplace, with benefits and drawbacks.

As helpful as these wearable technology devices can be, they also have an intrusive side that can be utilized by workers in order to take secret videos or photographs. These are starting to cause many employers to feel a considerable amount of concern, according to a lawyer from Morrison and Foerster, Susan McLean.

There are a range of different types of privacy implications resulting from the use of wearable technology in the workplace.

Wearable technology causing problemsAccording to McLean, “There are huge privacy and ethical implications around wearable technology.” She went on to express that this struggle regarding the use of wearables by employees will only continue to become greater as time goes on. As Google Glass, smartwatches, and other wearable mobile devices start to be owned and used for a growing number of purposes at home and at work, the problems with privacy and security will rise, particularly throughout the first several years of their evolution.

As this mobile technology continues to become more mainstream, it will be up to employers to come up with the necessary policies to decide exactly how workers will be able to use these devices, and then to know how to enforce these regulations. McLean provided the example that if Google Glass were used in a workplace to record videos of a meeting that includes other workers, it could be interpreted as bullying.

Another example is that an employee who is facing disciplinary action would be able to use augmented reality glasses to secretly record a meeting so that this video could be used later on in legal proceedings. Due to these types of risk, McLean cautioned that “Companies have to be very clear on how and why employees use wearable technology.”