Japanese Surgeon Uses an iPad in Operation

Though there are tons of tablets being announced at Computex this week, the iPad is the one attracting all of the attention outside the show. With more than two million units sold, the device is showing up in some pretty strange places.

The iPad was just launched in Japan last week but one surgeon is already making use of the device in his operating room. Though it's unclear exactly how he's using the iPad, the surgeons in the video (seen here on Wired UK) pinch, zoom and drag their fingers across the screen, examining what appears to be the patient's insides or reference photos.

Watching how new gadgets and technologies affect medicine is interesting and we're eager to see if some of the cheaper, more open tablets scheduled to hit the market will enter hospitals on a more widespread scale. Digital hospital charts would be just one of the possibilites.

Wired points out that another Japanese doctor x-rayed his iPad back in April. Just because you're a doctor, doesn't mean you don't like x-raying random crap for fun.

HP: No, No, We ARE in the Smartphone Market

Yesterday, HP CEO Mark Hurd ruffled a few feathers by saying the company didn't buy Palm to get into the smartphone business. Rather, HP purchased Palm for the company's IP and WebOS and wants to put WebOS on tablets, netbooks and more. 


However, it seems all the talk has Mark Hurd rethinking his statement. Despite admitting at the time that "it doesn't seem to resonate well" when he tells people HP didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business, the HP CEO was last night retracted his remarks about not wanting to be in the smartphone business. Hurd said in a statement (via Engadget) that they yes, will be putting WebOS on pretty much every web-conntected device they can get their hands on, but that includes smartphones.

Toshiba LCD Prototype Does Simultaneous 2D, 3D

Toshiba's prototype incorporates two overlaying screens, one for 2D and one for 3D.

Last month during SID 2010, Toshiba Corp introduced a prototype 12-inch LCD that could display 2D and 3D images simultaneously. Toshiba is one of many manufacturers looking for ways to provide 3D content without forcing the end-user to wear special glasses to achieve the effect. Unfortunately, Toshiba's solution could be costly, as its current prototype actually incorporates two LCD screens.

Toshiba said that it has developed an "integral imagine method" that provided nine viewpoints. The panel displays 3D images by using Toshiba's "GRIN (gradient index)" lens that serves as an overlay. This lens--mounted on a separate LCD panel--changes the distribution of refraction indexes by controlling the gradient (orientation) of liquid crystal molecules.

A second LCD panel, sitting behind the first screen with the GRIN lens, serves as the primary source of 2D images. When the GRIN lens is turned off, the refraction index doesn't change, allowing light to pass normally. however when the GRIN lens is turned on, liquid crystal molecules align themselves in a radial pattern. These patters are formed in parallel with electrodes that are vertically aligned, creating stripes--this effect is what creates the 3D illusion.

According to Toshiba, it's possible to show both 2D and 3D images at the same time. This is made possible by partially turning on the GRIN lens screen. But as it stands, Toshiba has already thrown in a third LCD screen that can change the polarization of light by 90-degrees between the two panels. This allows the user to switch between 2D and 3D father quickly.

Google Lets You Put Your Face on Google.com

Is Google taking a leaf out of Microsoft's book?

One of the nifty features of Bing is the Picture of the Day Microsoft has on the site's homepage. It brightens things up and though it does mean the page takes longer to load, Microsoft has said in the past that this decorative image loads last, while the search function loads first. In other words, it doesn't really affect speed at all. Now it looks like Google is looking to do something similar with it's famously minimalist homepage.

Google this week announced the ability for users to customise the homepage. You can choose an image from your computer, your Picasa albums or from the stock photos Google has on hand and replace all that white space with a nice sunset or a picture of your family.

Six Tech Companies Join Up to Boost Linux

There's been a ton of announcements at Computex this week, but the most surprising thing to come out of the entire show is a coalition formed by six of the industry's biggest names.

There are at least a couple of rivalries among ARM, Freescale, IBM, Samsung, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments. However, this hasn't stopped the six companies from forming a new organization aimed at accelerating the rollout of Linux-based devices.

Dubbed Linaro, the not-for-profit company plans to invest heavily in open source projects, which can then be used by Linux-based distributions such as Android, LiMo, MeeGo, Ubuntu and webOS.

"Linaro will provide a stable and optimized base for distributions and developers by creating new releases of optimized tools, kernel and middleware software validated for a wide range of SoCs, every six month," the companies said in a press release.

The first software and tools release is due in November of this year, and will provide optimizations for the latest range of ARM Cortex-A CPUs. Though the venture seems to be aimed at smartphones for now, Linaro plans to branch out to other industries in the future.

The organization is made up of the six companies named above, but more are expected to join as Linaro grows.