Now you can turn your smartphone into an eye doctor.
Category: mobile phones – Page 218
How machine learning Is revolutionizing the diagnosis of rare diseases
Well before the family came in to the Batson Children’s Specialty Clinic in Jackson, Mississippi, they knew something was wrong. Their child was born with multiple birth defects, and didn’t look like any of its kin. A couple of tests for genetic syndromes came back negative, but Omar Abdul-Rahman, Chief of Medical Genetics at the University of Mississippi, had a strong hunch that the child had Mowat-Wilson syndrome, a rare disease associated with challenging life-long symptoms like speech impediments and seizures.
So he pulled out one of his most prized physicians’ tools: his cell phone.
Using an app called Face2Gene, Abdul-Rahman snapped a quick photo of the child’s face. Within a matter of seconds, the app generated a list of potential diagnoses — and corroborated his hunch. “Sure enough, Mowat-Wilson syndrome came up on the list,” Abdul-Rahman recalls.
Now You Can Make Movies of Living Cells With Your Smartphone!
Very cool; I do look forward to see where we land in the next 5 years on mobile imaging systems.
Years ago I remember developing software for a mobile blood gas analyzer to help researchers and doctors in some of the world’s most remote locations. And, the technology then did improve survival rates for so many. And, I see advances like this one doing so much for many who do not have access or the luxury of centralize labs, or hospitals, etc.
Democratizing Cellular Time-Lapses with a Cell-Phone!
A group of researchers from Uppsala University have recently developed an affordable system capable of capturing time-lapse videos of living cells under various conditions. Dubbed the affordable time-lapse imaging and incubation systm (ATLIS), the system can be constructed out of off-the-shelf electronic components and 3D-printed parts while using a standard smartphone for imaging.
While there have been other microscope adapters for smartphones to enable easy image capturing, the ATLIS is much more than microscope smartphone adapters. It is optimised in order to convert old microscopes found in abundance in Universities and hospitals into full-fledged time-lapse systems to image cell dynamics. Such a system requires strict environmental control of temperature, pH, osmolarity and light exposure in order to maintain normal cell behaviour.
Just a SmidgION: Oxford Nanopore announce iPhone-powered sequencing
CTO Clive Brown announces new Oxford Nanopore sequencing and library prep devices during his keynote address to the company’s user group conference
Stop the presses! Not something we call on a regular bases at FLG towers because, well, our work is largely digital. But when the latest news from Oxford Nanopore landed on our desks this afternoon, this old print journalism adage felt rather apt.
News in brief: Groupon grief; Apple encryption delay; post-quantum crypto
Your daily round-up of some of the other security stories in the news
Groupon grief – was it password reuse?
The Telegraph reports that crooks have hijacked a number of Groupon accounts and used them to purchase expensive items like games consoles, iPhones and holidays. Some victims have suffered thousands of pounds of losses.
Flaunt Magazine
A column on #transhumanism I did for Flaunt:
Are you ready for the future? A Transhumanist future in which everyone around you—friends, family, and neighbors—has dipped into the cybernetic punch bowl? This is a future of contact lenses that see in the dark, endoskeleton artificial limbs that lift a half-ton, and brain chip implants that read your thoughts and instantly communicate them to others. Sound crazy? Indeed, it does. Nevertheless, it’s coming soon. Very soon. In fact, much of the technology already exists. It’s being sold commercially at your local superstore or being tested in laboratories right now around the world.
We’ve all heard about driverless test cars on the roads and how doctors in France are replacing people’s hearts with permanent robotic ones, but did you know there’s already a multi-billion dollar market for brainwave-reading headsets? Using electroencephalography (EEG) sensors that pick up and monitor brain activity, NeuroSky’s MindWave can attach to Google Glass and allow you to take a picture and post it to Facebook and Twitter just by thinking about it. Other headsets allow you to play video games on your iPhone with only your thoughts as well. In fact, a few months ago, the first mind-to-mind communication took place. A researcher in India projected a thought to a colleague in France, and using their headsets, they understood each other. Telepathy went from science fiction to reality, just like that.
The history of cybernetics—sometimes used to describe robotic implants, prosthetics, and cyborg-like enhancements in the human being and its experience—has come a long way since scientists began throwing around the term in the 1950s. What a difference a generation or two makes. Today a thriving pro-cyborg medical industry is setting the stage for trillion-dollar markets that will remake the human experience. Five million people in America suffer from Alzheimer’s, but a new surgery that involves installing brain implants is showing promise in restoring people’s memory and improving lives. The use of medical and microchip implants, whether in the brain or not, are expected to surge in the coming years. NBC News recently reported that many Americans will likely have chip implants within a decade’s time. It’s truly a new age for humans.
Standing proud at the forefront of all this change is the fascinating biohacker culture, where extreme inventors and innovators are leading the way by sticking RFID tracking chips in their bodies, permanent wireless headphones near their eardrums, and magnets in their fingers.
Headphones that Listen
Tune In, Take Control.
With OV, your day becomes more productive, enjoyable, and just a whole lot easier. Use your voice to play a song, order groceries and check the news. Switch seamlessly between the best music and calls, voice commands and real world conversations, without missing a beat and without touching your phone.
Accessible Photon Emission Could Bring Quantum Computing Out of the Lab
Researchers from the Tyndall National Institute in Cork have created micro-structures shaped like small pyramids that can create entangled photons. Does this mean that quantum computers are closer than we realize?
Quantum computers have been the stuff of science fiction for the past few decades. In recent times, quantum computers have slowly become more of a reality with some machines successfully solving real world problems such as games and path finding algorithms.
But why are quantum computers so desired by tech firms and why is there so much research into the field? Silicon has been incredibly loyal to the tech world for the past 50 years, giving us the point contact transistor in 1947. Now, silicon is at the center of technology with computers, tablets, smartphones, the IoT, and even everyday items. In fact, you cannot walk down a city street without being in range of some Wi-Fi network or influence from a small silicon device.