A new technique takes surround sound
to a new level of realism. The problem will be in getting film makers and
theatres to buy it.

Surgery to fix a malfunctioning pacemaker may be unnecessary when a new implantable transceiver chip is
attached to the device, enabling it to be adjusted by radio commands.

Yet another handheld pathogen
detector is under development, a disruptive innovation that threatens the
lab test business.

Artificial intelligence is helping the hearing impaired to hear better.

Bionic prosthetics are growing more
intelligent and therefore better, but also more expensive. The Pentagon�s
willingness to sponsor research and to pick up the tab for soldiers wounded in
Iraq helps somewhat.

Following a year of obscurity, T-rays are back in the news as potentially
the next generation of airport security scanner.

A powerful new
sensor technology from a small Israeli company has GE Healthcare, General
Motors, and Fujitsu pretty excited. It appears set to make a big impact in
improving scanners and in detecting health emergencies in individuals.

A new videoconferencing
system that allows two people to work on a document or image together in a very
natural way could be a boon for consults with remote specialists to examine
digital radiology images together.

Real-time machine translation
of human language is in use in Iraq.

Following a recent chip fabrication plant shutdown caused by the failure of
an air scrubber, Intel has replaced an engineer who, once every quarter, used a
handheld device to inspect some 4,000 sensors that monitored the scrubbers, with
a wireless network “smart dust” or “motes” that check the scrubbers every five
minutes, sending the data to a control station. The motes are not (yet) as small
as a speck of dust. In fact, they are anywhere from “3.5 centimetres square by
one centimetre thick to the size of a flashlight, depending on their function
and sensor package,” writes Grant Buckler for the Globe and Mail.

As an example of their cost, a complete wireless temperature and humidity
sensor mote costs about US$500, a price that could fall considerably as demand
and production rise. Current buyers include museums and art galleries, to
protect artworks against theft, and (as in the case of Intel) manufacturing
companies against equipment failures. One mote manufacturer envisions motes in
the homes of the elderly, to monitor medication usage, exercise activity, and
sleeping habits. Another is already selling motes that switch on the lights when
someone enters a room and adjust brightness depending on the ambient light, and
that detect radiation and gases in shipping containers

One analyst predicts that 200 million motes could ship by 2008.

Reference: Buckler, Grant (2004). “A
sprinkle of ‘smart dust’ keeps problems away.” Globe and Mail, July 22.

3-D Sound

A “superrealistic, . . . three dimensional” audio technology called
Iosono “will revolutionize sound in theaters, theme parks, and eventually
the home,” writes John Borland for CNET News. It can “give the impression
of, for example, a horse galloping through the center aisle of a movie theater,
or pinpoint a noise so that it sounds exactly like a person shouting from
outside theater walls.” Iosono‘s co-inventor told Borland: “PCs have now
become fast enough that you can do the (necessary) processing in real time. It
was not realistic to do that 10 years ago.”

The sound engineer uses a light pen to specify where a sound should appear to
be coming from, and a powerful computer to determine the amplitude and timing of
the sound from each of an array of up to 400 small speakers. On playback, a
computer in the auditorium takes into account the room acoustics to further
refine the sound.

The technology is expensive and faces the common chicken-and-egg problem —
movie makers mght not record in the new format if there are no theatres ready to
support it, and theaters might not install the expensive until there are movies
recorded in he new format.

Reference: Borland, John (2004). “MP3 creator returns with 3D
sound.” CNET News.com, July 23.

Antenna Chips for Remote Control of Implant
Devices

With a European Union grant, Canadian chipmaker Zarlink is developing antenna
chips for pacemakers, hearing aids, and muscle stimulators to enable doctors to
monitor and adjust the devices wirelessly. The devices work on wireless bands
devoted to medical implant communications in both the United States and Europe.
The company already makes low-power chips for hearing aids and pacemakers, and
recently announced a high-powered chip used to transmit images from a �gut pill�
camera, writes Susan Taylor for Reuters.

Within eight months, Zarlink expects to have a wireless transceiver chip for
pacemaker antennas, that will transmit 100 times more data than existing chips
and run faster on less power. It will enable a doctor to measure and adjust a
patient’s pacemaker in the office, eliminating the surgery usually needed to fix
a problematic pacemaker.

Reference: Taylor, Susan (2004). “Zarlink
to develop medical implant antenna chips.” Reuters via USA Today, June 13.

Handheld Pathogen Detector

A startup company is working to commercialize technology originally developed
with US Defense Department funding at MIT, in the form of a handheld device to
detect infectious agents, eliminating the need for lab tests, writes Raymund
Flandez in the Washington Post. The device will incorporate biosensors
drawn from the human immune system, then manipulated to detect pathogenic
bacteria, viruses, and proteins, including anthrax, E. coli, and other
respiratory viruses and contagious bacteria.

The company has already engineered a cell carrying a bioluminescent protein
that emits light when a specific pathogen is targeted, and expects to launch a
commercial product for the food-testing industry by the end of the year. Use of
the device in healthcare will require clinical testing and approval by the US
Food and Drug Administration.

Reference: Flandez, Raymund (2004). “Putting
Pathogen Detection in the Palm of Your Hand.” Washington Post, July 12.

See also “Dirty Hands Detector” in the May
issue.

Intelligent Hearing Aids

A new hearing aid uses artificial intelligence (AI) to mimic the brain’s
ability to detect and optimize speech while tuning out distracting sounds.
Oticon�s Syncro continually scans the environment for voices and other
sounds and reacts instantly to variations in sound signals, giving a hearing
impaired wearer improved hearing even in noisy environments such as busy streets
and crowded restaurants. The AI also determines where a sound is coming from,
whether it is voice or noise, its amplitude, and �even whether the wind is
blowing.� The device is already on the market.

Reference: Unknown (2004). “New hearing aid with artificial
intelligence is the first to mimic the brain’s natural ability to automatically
detect and optimize speech.” News-Medical, July 21.

Reference: Unknown (2004). “Artificial Intelligence Creates First
‘Thinking Ear.'” AgeVenture News Service, July 1.

Intelligent Knee

A small group of prosthetists has been selected to receive the first
production batch of the Rheo Knee, a bionic prosthetic that learns and
adapts itself to a user’s idiosyncratic ambulation, reports Nicholas Zamiska in
the Wall Street Journal. It will be available to the public �sometime
early next year, according to Ossur, its Icelandic maker.

Electronic sensors measure the joint�s angle and load 1,000 times per second,
and an onboard chip continually adjusts the viscosity of a magnetic fluid
(containing metal particles) inside the knee � and therefore its stiffness — by
adjusting a magnetic field. The result is a smooth swing of the leg. A PDA can
be plugged directly into the knee to retrieve data on its internal settings,
battery status, and other variables.

The Rheo will cost around US$18,000, �the final price tag for a knee,
foot, socket and labor of a prosthetist to fit the limb could be anywhere from
$40,000 to $50,000,� writes Zamiska. The Rheo Knee has been tested in
only 13 patients for one month, at least one of whom said “I love it. . . . It
feels like it does the walking for you.” It will compete against the $16,000
C-Leg from Germany�s Otto Bock HealthCare, which is widely in use for
wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and has been fitted in more than 5,000
people worldwide. The Rheo‘s major current drawback is that it is useless
and dangerous if the battery dies, though it will give �ample notice that the
battery needs to be charged.� All such advanced prosthetics are expensive and
the insurers don’t like to pick up the tab. The chairman of the board of the
Amputee Coalition of America, a nonprofit advocacy group, said “The
reimbursement end of this thing is a disaster.”

Reference: Zamiska, Nicholas (2004). “Bionic Knee
‘Learns’ How to Walk: New Prosthesis Is Designed To Adapt to the Movements Of
Users at Varying Speeds.” Wall Street Journal, July 6.

T-ray Security Scanner

A problem with the use of terahertz rays — T-rays — for
security scanning at airports and elsewhere is that they effectively strip the
scanned person naked on the monitor. A UK company has come up with another
approach: measuring the unique frequencies reflected by hidden objects (guns,
explosives,drugs etc.) to determine what they are. Instead of showing images on
a monitor, a hand-held T-ray wand under development has red and green lights to
tell the security officer if anything untoward is present. The technology should
arrive in airports within two years.

Reference: Graham-Rowe, Duncan (2004). “Handheld
terahertz wand to unmask terrorists.” New Scientist, July 12.

Ultrasensisitve Medical Sensors

An Israeli company has developed a sensor technology �10,000 times� more
sensitive than the sensors in today�s heart monitors and MRIs. It can provide
readings from several feet away without physical contact, eliminating the need
for heart monitor straps and treadmills — a wristband or the patient’s feet
could supply the signals, writes Kristen Philipkoski in Wired.

It also has broad application in satellites, cell phones, automobiles, and
even the bedroom, where a flat plastic vital-sign detector about the size of a
sheet of paper underneath the mattress will detect whether the occupant snores,
suffers a stroke, and the onset of sudden infant death syndrome, epileptic fits,
and asthma attacks. The device is set to undergo US Food and Drug Administration
trials as a treatment for sleep apnea. The devices will not only to provide
emergency data and immediate alerts, but also accumulate data over time for
periodic review by a physician.

GE Healthcare has bought a 10 percent stake in the 20-person company, called
Nexense, and is helping it develop improved MRI and CT. The Nexense sensor can
enhance CT and MRI images, �making them three-dimensional and easy for anyone to
read.� GE Healthcare is performing clinical trials at Johns Hopkins University
and the Mayo Clinic to test MRI and CT machines integrated with the sensor,
which compensates for the tiniest patient movement by telling the MRI when the
patient is completely still, so it can then capture a good image. GE Healthcare
reports it has �gotten some pretty impressive images using this device� and will
likely include the sensors in all of its MRI and CT machines.

Other top multinationals have sought help from Nexense, including General
Motors (for an engine torque sensor) and Fujitsu (for a “health phone” to detect
an asthma attack �or other health problem� and call next of kin or emergency
services.)

Reference: Philipkoski, Kristen (2004). “Tech Company Gets
Hypersensitive.” Wired News, July 1

.Videoconferencing Display

WiredFacetop, developed at the University of North Carolina, that
overlays videoconference video of the collaborators onto a transparent image of
a computer desktop, all on one computer monitor. The two videoconferees can thus
work on the same onscreen objects — a document or a digital x ray image, for
example — while communicating face to face. The system also tracks the position
of the users’ fingertips, which can control a cursor and also be used naturally
to point to parts of the document or image. It can also be used for remotely
delivering lectures or PowerPoint presentations, with the speaker �projected in
the background of the document allowing her to point out bullet points or
important passages.�

The system is inexpensively implemented on a pair of Apple PowerBooks
and two $100 FireWire cameras. A PC version may not be possible until the
next major version of Microsoft Windows appears (or so they say) in 2006.
The university is expected to license its patents on the technology to software
publishers. A future version will accommodate more than two videoconferees.

Reference: Kahney, Leander (2004). “Transparent
Desktop Opens Doors.” Wired News, July 9.

War Spurs Automatic Language
Translation

A machine translator called e-TAP that can translate Arabic television
programs in near real time is already in use by the security forces in Iraq. The
system displays the video, the Arabic transcript, and the translated English
transcript of Al Jazeera and other TV broadcasts.

Reference: Harrison, Ann (2004). “Battlefield
Tech for Aid Workers.” Wired News, July 21.