Google Glass helped to enhance the way that a surgeon can perform various procedures.
Two surgeons from the Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital have started using wearable technology in the form of Google’s augmented reality glasses to be able to boost their ability to make appropriate surgical decisions.
These doctors use the wearable tech’s voice control to access the information that they require, when they need it.
The two physicians, Dr. Szotek and Dr. Browne, became the first in the hospital to start using the augmented reality glasses during abdominal surgeries. They now each wear Glass during this procedure, which typically lasts around four hours. With them, they can access medical information – including records specific to the patient – as they remove tumors.
The augmented reality glasses can provide X-ray and MRI data on its floating display.
This information can all be shown by the wearable technology without getting in the way of the surgeon’s line of sight for the actual surgery itself. As it is commanded by the surgeon’s voice, there is no need to take hands away from where they are most needed and without upsetting the operating room’s sterile environment.
That said, this is only believed to be the start of the uses for Google Glass for these surgeons. They believe that these mobile devices will be more broadly helpful in the medical field as a whole. While other surgeons have used the gadgets’ point of view video streaming in order to educate themselves and have provided students with a live insight into every different phase of a surgery, Dr. Szotek sees this tech going further. He hopes to be able to use biological tracers so that his AR glasses will be able to actually differentiate between healthy tissue and the tumor, itself.
He stated that being able to automatically differentiate between these two tissues “could revolutionize the field of cancer surgery”. This would help to make certain that the tissue could be more completely removed while leaving the maximum amount of healthy tissue behind.
It could also be beneficial for emergency first responders to wear augmented reality glasses so that they would be better capable of handling unusual types of accident or medical condition, and to be able to provide them with accurate remote instructions.
While smartwatches may be growing in popularity, their ugliness is holding back consumer interest.
The latest tech trends are clearly headed toward wearable technology, and recent developments in smart jewelry is starting to prove that there is a way to wear these mobile devices in an attractive and fashion friendly way that has not yet been achieved by smartwatches and augmented reality glasses.
Google Glass and Samsung Galaxy Gear may have cool features, but wearers look like made for TV sci-fi movies.
The fact that the devices are ugly is making them a harder sell, despite the fact that they have the potential to provide consumers with a range of very interesting features. This trend in wearable technology is changing, though, as a growing number of different smart jewelry options start to become available from various different companies – primarily startups. The key is that they maintain functionality and practicality but they don’t actually look like computers.
Some of the top forms of smart jewelry look like a regular necklace or ring, despite the added features.
Among the forms of wearable technology that have been making headlines over the last while, without calling Star Trek or The Jetsons to mind include the following:
• Cellini Bluetooth Pendant – this device from CSR looks like a sleek and attractive pendant that is worn on a necklace. An app allows the user to change the color or brightness of an LED contained within the pendant in order to match the wearer’s mood or clothing. This is available for Android, or for iOS 7 users. In the latter case, the pendant can be told to alert the iPhone user of incoming calls, texts, or emails through a change in color, vibration, or a flashing light.
• Netatmo June Brooch/Bracelet – this jewelry, comes in the form of gold, gunmetal, or platinum in which is set a stone that resembles a large diamond. This is in the form of a broach or is set onto a leather wrist strap. It functions with an app to alert the user as to how much sun exposure he or she has had, as well as the UV index and local forecasts.
• Smarty Ring – this device is, of course, in the form of a ring and features an LED display that alerts the user to incoming calls, social media updates, and messages.
• NFC Ring – also a ring, this smart jewelry has built in NFC technology built into it. The idea behind this piece is to program this mobile device to hold data or perform various functions, such as unlocking a near field communications enabled smartphone.
