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This is old news, and just a variation on a theme -

As somebody who does this sort of stuff for a living - now they need to get around the IEC-60601 compliance and the FDA before they could introduce it in the USA.

http://www.devicelink.com/mddi/archive/03/09/015.html [devicelink.com]

Something similar is in the works for hospital use:

http://www.soterawireless.com/main/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=55&Itemid=18 [soterawireless.com]

That goes out over WiFi inside a hospital.

Also - Bluetooth LE (Low Energy) is designed for this application and there are a bunch of "health monitors either int the works, or already out there for this:

    http://mobihealthnews.com/2577/continua-picks-zigbee-bluetooth-le-for-health-devices-sensors/ [mobihealthnews.com]

Blood Glucose monitors using this technology have been around for a while:

http://www.dexcom.com/default.aspx [dexcom.com]

Now if you want exciting - research into electronic eyes, electronic ears and neural pacemaker for people with epilepsy are kind of interesting. Google them and you will find them.

Got your Borg Implants? :-)

One thing I will note is that the QSR is pretty waterfall oriented, both because it predates the formalization of iterative/agile methodologies, and because it's written for engineering of physical boxes that have to be released to manufacturing (which implies a fair bit of waterfallism). Part of our effort is to practice iterative development methodology while documenting to the FDA's standards.

Just a note: you're not alone. More and more device companies are trying Agile approaches while still adhering to QSR. This was a good article from MDDI a while back: http://www.devicelink.com/mddi/archive/07/10/009.html

http://www.engadget.com/entry/4351460713635569/

http://www.devicelink.com/mem/archive/05/04/004.ht ml

No. The X-Prize is a pittance. A single DARPA program manager has a yearly budget twice that big. America's Space Prize is a good-sized contract for a single small company for a couple of years. Of course, the government hands out thousands of those every year.

Of course, none of that stuff is really 'big'. Its not fundemental research. We've been to space, its a routine thing now. The X-Prize is just trying to get companies to do stuff we can already do, except faster and cheaper. Which is great, because companies are really good at that sort of thing. There is little commercial risk in embarking on a project that you already know is possible. The question you have to ask, rather, is whether it would have been possible to get into space in the first place just by relying on corporations? Or, could fundemental physics breakthroughs that have had huge impacts on our economy (a significant fraction of our economy is possible only thanks to quantum physics), been possible by relying on corporations to build particle accelerators. Would the nuclear age, something that has kept America at the top of the world for half a century, been possible by relying on corporations to do the research? No!

As for the artificial heart, I presume you're referring to the AbioCor replacement project. If so, then this interview with Abiomed's president is particularly interesting to read. I quote:

" Yes. The majority of our research efforts from 1981 until 1996 were funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and that funding contribution has held up over the years. Historically, the artificial heart project is a national mission with government support".

And,

"Yes, funding from the National Institutes of Health supported the major portion of R&D activities for the artificial heart until 1996".

Finally,

"In 1996, our technical team told me that the major technological hurdles for the AbioCor had been overcome, and that we were ready to move the product into a commercial development path".

In other words, government funding sustained the project for 15 years until 1996. At that point, all the really difficult challenges had been overcome, ie: the commercial risk had been minimized, and it was then possible to commercialize the technology.

People have tinkered like this for a long time. My favorite, going back to 1997, is where they combined silicon and eye of newt. No kidding! http://www.devicelink.com/mddi/archive/99/07/003.h tml

I believe this is may be done using MEMS (micro electro mechanical systems) for drug delivery.. Kurt Petersen (who published one of the first papers on the subject) is part of the company who develop similar products.. [Cepheid.com] Also [IVT Technologies]

You need to select devices that can be hosed down. That means comercial devices that almost meet NEMA 4. The only way to get rid of goo is soap and water. Retail devies are just not ment for a medical environment. And you must get rid of the goo BEFORE you sterilize. That goo can carry pirons (sp?) even after EtO so plan for soap and water. There are sources of ruggedized tools such as Symbol Technologies. You are going to pay more, but you have a responsability to do it right.

Go to a medical or engineering school and ask for their Bioengineering department and ask for help. This is way over the head of /.

1. Nearly perfect geometric shapes

There's a number of ways one can produce these shapes using a series of ropes and stakes. The fact that these images are perfect geometric shapes actually HELPS prove that they're manmade. Regardless of how complex they are, there are simple geometric principles one can use to produce them. Consider the alternative...if they were not perfect geometric shapes, i.e. shapes that could not be produced through some simple mathematical formulation, but still perfectly created, would they be less or more convincing?

The pictures are even more obvious (including the ASCII-encoded "digital disc". If the intent is to communicate an image, there would be much better ways to do so. And ASCII encoding? In perfect English? Why not just write the damned letters? Encodinging it "digitally" makes it seem less obvious...people with little knowledge of ASCII or character codings go "ooh" and "ahh" and say it must be real. Gimme a break.

2. iron spheres

Please, I have a bucket of these in my garage. They're called various names, including "microspheres" and are used in various industries as a substrate, deburring mechanism, polishing medium, abrasive medium, etc. Under a microscope, they can be as small as a couple hundred microns. Try here.

3. Radioactive, cooked plants

Radioactive microspheres are often used for delivering radioactive isotopes for medical applications. Try here.

As for the cooking, I'd have to see it for myself, but a quick torch at low temparature applied to a plant causes the sugars near the surface to quickly carmelize, and the plant to become pliable without severe damage to the core of the plant. The results afterwards, however, are a permanent change in the shape of the plant, and reduced growth (but the plant is not killed). In the presence of water, the plants can also be softened with less damage to the stem. Again, I don't know for sure :) Plants are pretty resilient things though.

4. odd performance from aircraft

Dunno about this one. I'd be interested in a double-blind study to confirm this is the case, and I haven't seen any definitive evidence saying this is true. Have someone fly over it without knowing it was there and report problems, and maybe we'll have a winner. If someone sees the circle or knows it's there BEFORE reporting problems, all bets are off. We are easily influence by things we want to believe. "There's a crop circle, I bet my instruments are going to go wacky....THEY ARE!!!"

Can't help but think that you're trolling, per your sig. But I was curious enough to look at google.

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