Technology has always changed the way we live our lives. From the very industrial revolution, there has been no area of life that has been left untouched by technology. The most important ones, of all the feats of technology, are those which offer better healthcare and lifestyle. With the so-called ‘horrible’ year of 2020 approaching its end, here is a compilation of three top technological inventions of the year. The innovations that revolutionize health and medicare industry, offering new and better lifestyle, making life better.
You can read other articles under the title ‘2020 in a Nutshell’ here.
XVision: Making Surgeries Easier…
Superpowers have always been the writers’ favourite topic. Comics like DC and Marvel have been the fan favourite among people of all age groups. But, what if surgeons get a superpower, something like x-ray vision? That is precisely what the augmedics team has come up with, a superpower that allows surgeons to look what’s under the subjects’ skin and accurately operate on them, especially in surgeries where every single millimetre counts.
[Image: The Conversation]
Armed with Augmented Reality technology, the xvision is a powerful headset with a powerful, high-speed processor of its own. It converts the CT scan data of the patient’s body into 3D models and superimposes it on the patient’s body with extreme accuracy.
The AR headset enables surgeon to perform surgeries with greater precision and attention.
The technology aims at eliminating the attention shift in precision surgeries. These require total concentration, and having to look at the screen away from the operating table disrupts their attention. With this technology, the surgeon no more has to look at a different screen to look at graphs and scanned data, everything gets projected right on the patient’s body.
Equipped with a surgical tracking system, the headset also efficiently tracks the surgical equipment and effectively guides the surgeon through the surgery. Thus, it acts as a personal assistant, improving the efficiency of the surgeon, and the success rate of the surgery.
On June 17 2020, Dr Frank Phillips became First in the World to Use Augmented Reality Surgical Guidance in Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery, displaying the effectiveness of this technology in performing surgeries.
Earlens: Beautifying sounds…
The dream of every hearing-impaired people is to listen to the beauty of music and to hear their dear one’s voices. They wait for that magical moment when they finally will be able to listen to all these dear sounds. Well, there goes a quote “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Technology has truly proven to be beautiful magic for these people.
For aeons, conventional hearing aids have been the enchantments. These help people with damaged cochlear hair cells hear sounds. They cannot sense sounds with low volume but can hear very loud sounds. The hearing aids amplify sound and make it loud enough for them to hear. But this technology is not efficient, they perform very well at middle frequencies and utterly fail at high and low frequencies.
Enter magicians who go by the name EARLENS, they totally change the league of hearing aids. This technology enables one to hear sounds as it was meant to be heard. The magic is in the ‘lens’. Earlens uses a small lens placed directly on the eardrum to vibrate and activate your natural hearing process. This lens receives signals from the ‘behind-the-ear processor’, and it vibrates the eardrum of the wearer. By sending sound information directly to the eardrum without a speaker, you get more complete sound than any other hearing device on the market. The result? Rich, natural sound.
EARLENS is a groundbreaking invention. It is something that realises the dreams of millions, and allows them to live their life to the fullest. This is indeed a giant leap and represents a unique and significant step forward in the hearing device industry.
LUCI: Smarter Mobility…
The world is a beautiful, dangerous place, and power wheelchairs should make it more beautiful and less dangerous for the people in them. LUCI is a smart wheelchair technology for the most fearless people on Earth. Tripping over in a wheelchair is very common. More than 90% of wheelchair users have reported having tripped and fallen off the wheelchair. Some injuries can also be too large and may require hospital admission. But the sad fact is that wheelchair users are also left behind when it comes to technology. This all changed when the thought struck, what if wheelchairs could be made smarter?
LUCI intends on doing the same. It adds smart technology to your existing power wheelchair for stability, security, and connectivity. LUCI’s goal is not autonomy, it is independence. LUCI is designed to automatically, smoothly slow a power wheelchair to a stop before colliding with things or driving off steps or curbs. It combines stereo vision, infrared, ultrasonic and radar data into a single view of the world, enabling never-before-seen possibilities for power wheelchair riders. Using this data, it detects curbs and other obstacles effectively saving the user of the fall. LUCI is a simple installation which can be used with an already owned power wheelchair, but the job it does is fairly great. Not only this, but it also offers connectivity, sharing the user’s location and other data in real-time.
LUCI has made the world a better and safer place for everyone to live. It has eliminated the fear out of their minds and has made them independent. With this technology, everyone can move around with ease and without any worries. It indeed makes the world a more beautiful place for power wheelchair users.
With this, I conclude the list of the three amazing innovations of 2020 that has made people lifes better. These inventions prove that humanity still lingers deep down in the dark alleys of life. There are people who still strive to make the world a better and more beautiful place for everyone. Technology has been the glimmer of hope that everyone can cling to, dreaming of an elegant future, a future where one can throw away all the heart’s fears and live life to its fullest.
“At times the world may seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe that there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough. and what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may in fact be the first steps of a journey.”
Lemony Snicket
[…] by the current world situation can’t be tackled using just one of them; and next year we see Extended Reality (XR) to grow rapidly having amalgamated VR & AR. To life getting back to normal, XR will play a […]
You actually make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find
this matter to be actually something that I think I would
never understand. It seems too complicated and very broad for me.
I am looking forward for your next post, I’ll try to get the hang of it!