Author: Julie Campbell

This technology is providing doctors with a virtual view of real world organs during surgeries.

Fraunhofer MEVIS, a research institute in Germany, has now created an app that gives surgeons the opportunity to use an iPad device as an augmented reality viewfinder in the real time to assist them during operations.

The app provides doctors with the ability to better plan their surgeries and to use digital overlays of primary blood vessels.

This use of technology could provide a meaningful amount of assistance to doctors who are frequently required to memorize the precise locations of a person’s blood vessels so that they can avoid them during a surgical procedure. By complementing that practice with a system based on augmented reality would mean that they would have reminder support that could be effective enough that it could save lives.

The augmented reality system is still in need of some fine tuning as it remains somewhat on the clunky side.

Though the concept of using augmented reality this way may seem promising, it has a number of glitches that still need to be worked out, because it is not possible for a surgeon to actually use the technology on his or her own during an operation. To use the tablet at the same time that an operation is taking place, another pair of hands is required, and that individual will need to be able to hold it up and at the perfect angle throughout length and challenging surgeries.

The solution that seems most obvious for this problem is to introduce the system based on augmented reality to a device that is hands free, such as the Google Glass head mounted product. Though it doesn’t look as though Fraunhofer MEVIS is currently working on that type of project, it does have teams that are examining different ways to be able to project the surgical planning data directly onto the individual who is receiving the procedure and on his or her organs. The team is also working on systems that would give doctors the ability to use a gesture to be able to access the device, instead of the touchscreen.

According to the latest statistics, these figures have climbed by 74 percent over last year.

A brand new technology news report has just been released that has stated that the Asia Pacific countries, as well as those in Eastern Europe and Latin America are the regions experiencing the highest amount of growth in the sale of smartphones.

The data that was released in the report showed skyrocketing rates of growth in the sale of the devices.

The report was first printed in a large online Asian technology news site, and stated that when compared to the same time last year, there has been a 74.1 percent growth rate of smartphones in Asia Pacific countries, a 55.7 percent increase in Latin American countries, and a 31.6 percent rise in the Easter European sales.

The technology news data, itself, was collected and provided by Gartner, confirming that smartphones are still taking off.

It provided confirmation to what many technology news sources had already been suggesting, that smartphone sales are steadily and rapidly on the rise around pretty much all regions around the globe. It went on to say that in the second quarter of this year, the mobile phone sales worldwide, to the end consumers, was up to 435 million units. This was a global increase of 3.6 percent when compared to the same time in 2012.

In the second quarter of 2013, smartphone sales increased by 46.5 percent, making it the first time in history that these devices exceeded the sale of smartphones. The technology news went on to indicate that during that quarter alone, the sale of smartphones to the end consumer came up to 225 million units, while at the same time, only 210 million units of feature phones were sold.

Worldwide, the technology news was the best for Samsung, which continued to hold its top position in the smartphone marketplace. Its share of the smartphone market rose to 31.7 percent, in comparison to the 29.7 percent that it had reached in the same quarter in 2012.

According to an technology news statement released by the principal research analyst, Anshul Gupta, from Gartner, “Smartphones accounted for 51.8% of mobile phone sales in the second quarter of 2013, resulting in smartphone sales surpassing feature phone sales for the first time.”