Kinect's New Trick To Be In The Operating Room?
The next proving ground for Microsoft's Kinect? It might not be where
you expect. After taking over the living room and exciting gamers across
the world, the Kinect has made the move to all sorts of other
categories. Everything from making music videos to PC-based hacks have
been seen, but for the most part, nothing on a professional level has
surfaced. That's all changing now, as the Kinect slides over into the
operating room. Doctor's at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in
Toronto, Canada are hoping that the Kinect could soon help them out
during sophisticated surgeries.
Basically, they're looking to get real-time data feedback without using a mouse; with Kinect, you could simply use it to react to body movements. The goal is to enable doctors to review CT scans while in the surgery room, and since their hands wouldn't ever touch anything (they'd just wave around in front of the Kinect), things would remain sterile. It's not easy to tell if this idea will go viral across hospitals, but it doesn't seem too far-fetched; it's a rather cheap piece of equipment, and anything to make it easier on doctors...well, sounds like a winner to us.
Basically, they're looking to get real-time data feedback without using a mouse; with Kinect, you could simply use it to react to body movements. The goal is to enable doctors to review CT scans while in the surgery room, and since their hands wouldn't ever touch anything (they'd just wave around in front of the Kinect), things would remain sterile. It's not easy to tell if this idea will go viral across hospitals, but it doesn't seem too far-fetched; it's a rather cheap piece of equipment, and anything to make it easier on doctors...well, sounds like a winner to us.
