iOnRoad

This small Israeli startup is taking an emerging mobile technology — augmented reality — and applying it to an established mobile service: vehicle navigation.  iOnRoad doesn’t just want drivers to look at their smartphones while driving; it wants them to look through the lens of their devices, seeing an enhanced view of the road ahead of them.

Its Android app (soon to be available for the iPhone) calculates the speed and direction the user’s vehicle is moving, using the phone’s accelerometer and digital compass, and then uses visual cues from the imaging data collected through phone’s camera to determine which lane the vehicle is in and its distance from other vehicles. For example, if you get too close to the car in front of you, of if the app detects brake lights beaming in the distance, or if you start veering out of your lane, the app emits a visual and audio warning.

CEO and founder Alon Atsmon said iOnRoad hopes to integrate the software with other vehicle navigation apps, which would take augmented driving to the next level. Rather than only know what lane you’re in, iOnRoad could then know what lane you’re supposed to be in.

P2i

Dunking ‘waterproof’ phones in buckets of water takes the cake when it comes to cheesy demos, but nano-coating company P2i isn’t messing about with phones. In Barcelona, it submerged paper napkins treated with its polymer; they emerged from the water without a spec of moisture, as dry as when they first left their packaging.

P2i CTO Stephen Coulson developed the technology under contract with the U.S. Department of  Defense U.K. Government’s Defence Science & Technology Laboratory as a means of creating water-resistant military fatigues. Coulson has since expanded its uses to consumer and industrial electronics, applying a molecule-thick coating to every internal and external component of the device within the controlled confines of a plasma chamber. The result is a device that you can accidentally drop in the toilet, sink or in a puddle of water. Motorola is already using the technology, calling it SplashGuard, in its newer smartphones and tablets.

So why doesn’t P2i dunk phones at its demo? P2i is upfront about the fact that the phones it treats aren’t waterproof – you can’t take them scuba diving. There are truly waterproof phones on the market, but they have pressure seals and gaskets that add a lot of cost to the device. P2i’s goal is protect against one of the most common accidents afflicting consumer electronics while adding only incremental cost to the device.

Nokia’s PureView

Nokia took a bit of a beating in Barcelona for making its news a Symbian device, not one using the Windows Phone platform to which Nokia’s star is now tied. But the PureView camera technology embedded within the modest 4-inch-screened, Belle OS-driven Nokia 808 was mind-blowing stuff.

The PureView sensor embedded in the Nokia 808

We always talk here of how the camera phone is replacing the digital camera, but I think that talk is overblown. Yes, it’s true that more people are reaching for their phones rather than a point-and-shoot, but we’re also winding up with a lot of really crappy photos. PureView may bridge that disconnect between hardware and convenience.

The 41-megapixel camera produced poster-sized pictures of incredible color and depth with no visible distortion or artifacts whatsoever. Impressive, but most people don’t want to shoot posters — they want 3x5s. That’s exactly where the over-the-top pixel depth comes in handy, Nokia officials claimed. The standard picture setting is just a mere 5 MP, but PureView oversamples every shot, selects the best image information available and then discards the extra pixels. The result is incredibly detailed and rich photos at standard resolutions.

Like many people, I’m a bit leery of buying a Symbian device, considering its limited life span, but once this technology makes it into other devices, it will be a huge selling point for anyone who wants to discard stand-alone digital cameras entirely.

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The switch has just received 510(k) clearance from the FDA, so Siemens is cleared to begin using it as soon as the system is in place. FDA 510(k) clearance is a series of requirements any new medial devices must meet, by law, before they can be implemented in practice. The clearance opens the door for other health science and service companies to make similar use of the Apple operating system.

Siemens lists increased patient data storage capacity, expandable patient data management capabilities, faster sequencing times and more customizable reporting functions as the reasons for the selection of OS X.

The Genotyping Kit and DNA Sequencing System the new iMacs will be supporting monitors HIV-1 resistance in patients, and resistance to different drugs. The information gathered is used to generate algorithms that allow oncologists to maintain an adaptive treatment routine, designed to minimize the potential negative effects of mutations which leave HIV resistant to specific medicines.

Macs are gaining ground in medical applications, especially when graphics are important. Radiology departments, specifically, are increasingly using a rewritten, FDA-approved version of an open-source program called OsiriX to produce high-quality x-ray imaging. The reason for the growing presence of OS X in radiology is its superior 3D visualization capabilities, and its cost relative to other high-end imaging software solutions.

Apple is accumulating more FDA approvals, greater industry presence, and getting buy-in from medical students in a wide range of fields. It might not be too long before you find an iMac waiting for you at your next regular check up, or before OS X saves your life…and not just in the usual “Vista was killing me!” way.

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