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Facebook Exec's New Startup 'Open Water' Targets Wearable Brain Imaging (xconomy.com)
gthuang88 writes: Display-tech guru Mary Lou Jepsen is leaving her post at Facebook/Oculus to work on a new startup called Open Water. Jepsen, a veteran of Google X and the MIT Media Lab, says the company will develop wearable MRI devices that could help doctors do early detection of cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Inspired in part by musician Peter Gabriel, Open Water also hopes to use advances in neural imaging and brain-machine interfaces to create a system for reading and communicating human thoughts electronically. She believes there's huge potential in the manufacturing plants in Asia that are primarily used to make OLEDs and LCDs. "My big bet is we can use that manufacturing infrastructure to create the functionality of a $5 million MRI machine in a consumer electronics price-point wearable. And the implications of that are so big." At that price-point, every doctor's office in the world could afford such a device and use it to detect early stages of neurodegenerative disease, cancer, cardiovascular disease, internal bleeding, blood clots, and more.
How?
The magnet field emitted by an MRI is so powerful it can cause metal objects to fly through the air and damage the machine. By what magic of DSP voodoo do they propose to shrink a machine which makes a Microwave Oven look like an LED flashlight by comparison down to a "wearable" size/price?
Does it use the earth's magnetic field with an extremely long "shutter time"? If so: how do they address the target moving while the continuous "exposure" is recording? Where is this data being cached and how is it getting off the wearable and into the cloud?
No lines here meanwhile, because we can't afford most of our own technology.
Dying or buying transportation to the US. I got an MRI within 30 minutes of arriving at a Seattle hospital after my accident in Richmond, BC. I was fortunate enough to be able to afford the ride and the medical care. My doctor at Richmond General recommended going to Seattle for immediate care.
I was transferred from Peace Arch Hospital in Canada just north of the border to Overlake Hospital in Bellevue, WA after a bad motorcycle accident. They rolled me straight in from the ambulance to a CAT scan. The first doctor I talked to said that would have probably taken three or more weeks had I stayed in Canada. I'm glad I agreed to doing it since the scan showed a pelvis fracture that didn't show-up in my first set of x-rays.
This has the potential to be an awesome lie detector. Not as clumsy and ineffective as a polygraph. I can see the beginning of a wonderful friendship between FB and the DoD.
P.T. Barnum?
My prognosis as a medical device engineer is that they'll manage maybe one of those four ...
Oh, and btw, MRIs are cheap, fast and plentiful today. I've experienced a time when that wasn't the case, when there were two devices in the whole country and a month-long waiting list based on how interesting your case is. And the examination took over three hours, compared to just under 30 minutes today. If anyone claims that MRIs are too expensive today, my guess is that they're in country with a backwater health insurance system. Which could be fixed more easily than cramming a medical-grade MRI into a gadget form factor.
Meh, I'll wait until it's injectable into eyeballs.
The magnetic field of an MRI determines the wavelength of the absorbed/re-emitted signal. MRIs use high-strength magnetic fields to get the higher precision that comes from using shorter wavelengths.
You can make an MRI that sits on your desktop. See "The Amateur Scientist" by C.L. Strong for an example.
The big issue with MRIs is uniformity of the magnetic field. Since the signal is dependent on the field strength, any variation in this strength results in signals of a different frequency. MRIs are traditionally big in order to have uniform magnetic fields in the cylindrical chamber.
We've actually come a long way in processing algorithms as well. For example, this project is attempting to make a desktop MRI using structured-light algorithms to compensate for the field variation.
Perhaps Mary Lou Jepson did due dilligence before embarking on this venture.
So, miniaturization...this is where I think the core concept of the (fallacious) 'Moore's Law' actually can be seen in effect.
What I mean is, though it is not any kind of formula or 'law', we can see a very idetifiable trend towards making our tech smaller. It's so clear and consistent it's about as close to 'certain' as these kinds of things can be.
The software is there...most of our limitations are hardware...usually battery weight, as boring as it sounds.
I think we will see fMRI applications for consumer products fairly soon, and in general BCI stuff will get smaller.
Have a look at the work of Manue Rodrigeuz Delgado from the 60s and 70s with BCI and just R/F tech...it will blow your mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Thank you Dave Raggett
Open Water also hopes to use advances in neural imaging and brain-machine interfaces to create a system for reading and communicating human thoughts electronically
Feasibility of any such device aside.. I don't for a second believe that this is being worked on to benefit medical science, it's just an attack on pretty much the last place you can have privacy: Your own thoughts. Them, them, FUCK THEM, and their privacy-invading bullshit.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Cannot wait to see what Peter Gabriel creates with tools like this!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.