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Using Kinect For a Touch-Free Interface In Surgery
cylonlover writes "While Microsoft probably isn't thrilled open source drivers for its Kinect have led to it being used for 3D virtual sex games, a new application for the device developed by members of the Virtopsy research project at the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Bern in Switzerland is likely to be more welcome. The team has developed a functional prototype using Kinect that provides users with a hands-free way to review radiological images."
Whatever you do, please keep this technology away from TSA!
Table-ized A.I.
The summary fails to connect the viewing of radiographs to surgery. The point of this is to allow interaction with a computer without having to touch anything, in order to select, view, zoom, pan, etc radiographs. Hands-free is fantastic in this case, as it maintains a sterile environment, and keeps blood from being smeared all over physical computer controls. Obviously there would be many uses for this in surgery besides just viewing radiographs, but that is a good place to start.
Better known as 318230.
Why did the Wii get practically ignored, but Kinect gets all the attention. I mean aside from the badonkadonk-sized Microsoft PR/hype machine. I'm guessing the simplicity of the device with regard to how similar the 360 is to a standard PC, but there has to be more to it than that.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
The summary fails to provide the relevant link(s).
Do I look like a doctor?
The tech-head they have in clip has a definite Arnie voice!
Worst. Title. Ever.
Hands-free, eh? I do not think that term means what you think it means.
So they put a stop to someone trying to make an entertaining, sexy time game yet they let this crap fly?
I mean, they are saying they want to look at and interact with pictures of your INSIDES! The porn game did not even aspire to go this far! They just wanted to make something that we would probably all buy. Yet, a bunch of nerds are suddenly geniuses for developing something that only they will probably use and nobody will buy. You think hospitals have a budget for the xbox needed to even use the kinect? Do you think ANYONE is going to buy this surgery "game"? Get real.
I'm convinced Microsoft really is bad at making business decisions. Who do they have working there, dopes in suits?
And no, I didn't read anything other than the subject. Why should I?
Surgeon: we are sorry, he is dead
Wife: what happened, a medical error?
Surgeon: not at all, just another MS bug. But a patch should be delivered soon..
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
The title is fine, it is you that fail.
Which is one of the reason there's so much excitement. The Wiimote has a somewhat imprecise accelerometer that is uses to measure gross movements, and a reasonably high resolution IR camera in the front that it uses to look for two dots (that its bar generates) to do precise aiming. Ok, cool, and there are many hacks out there for it. However Kinect takes it all a step further. It uses the same kind of IR camera (hell might be the same camera in both units) but instead of looking for a couple dots, it projects a whole field of them. That allows it to be stationary, and to measure things in 3D that it sees. This is then combine with other information from a visible light camera.
So as the parent said, for this application the interest is in the "hands off no sterilization" thing but in general it is because Kinect is more advanced. What you can do with it is cooler in general, things like realtime 3D capture (though at a rather low resolution) and so on. That is going to lead to more interest.
You have to realize that what the Wiimote does has kinda been done before. Gyration, among others, have made motion sensing controllers that you can use. Gyration makes mice. Their Pro Air mouse is a wireless optical mouse, when on a desk, and then becomes a motion sensing mouse when lifted up. You just tilt it around to control things (it has a trigger so you can tell it when you want it to move the pointer, and when you are just moving around). Thus while there is some interest in the Wiimote, in part because it is much cheaper than devices like that, it is really nothing new.
The Kinect is the first device, at least the first consumer one, that can do a good job of tracking what it happening completely visually and passively. You don't have to hold anything or have anything on you (like a reflective strip). It just watches what you do and can get useful 3D data from that, which can then be processed by programs. That's pretty amazing.
I should just point out that PrimeSense, the hardware manufacturer behind the Kinect, also has open source drivers, as well (closed source, free of charge) libraries for skeleton detection and other stuff. Info in this, still pending, Slashdot article.
Shachar
"While Microsoft probably isn't thrilled open source drivers for its Kinect have led to it being used for 3D virtual sex games" [Citation Needed]
I'm a surgeon, and the parent poster hasn't the slightest clue what he is talking about. This would just free up the circulating nurse to do his/her actual job, rather than messing with a computer because the surgeon is scrubbed and can't touch it.
I'm not sure which is more depressing: /. is filled with other equally clueless folks who consider such BS to warrant "+5, Insightful"
1. That people feel compelled to post opinions in the complete absence of actual knowledge.
or
2. That
David Bruce