Saturday, April 18, 2009

Doctors Tweeting During Surgery?

Doctors Tweet During SurgeryWhen one is faced with the decision of surgery, it is never an easy feeling. So many things could happen and could potentially be life threatening. You always want to make sure everything is on order. The tools are ready, you are ready, and the doctor is ready. But what if you were lying on the operating table and you looked over to find your surgeon furiously Tweeting before your operation?

The social-networking site Twitter, which has grown in size and popularity at an incredible rate, just found another use for itself. While we all are desperately trying to figure out what new thing Ashton Kutcher is Tweeting about, there is one new thing that you might be interested in checking out. There is an all new fad hitting Twitter these days, and its live surgery updates. That's right, doctors are now starting to post on Twitter, during surgery, about their progress.

Last month, a hospital in Detroit posted a live feed on Twitter about their operation. The doctors talked medical students through the procedure of a complicated brain surgery. From all across the country, students could ask questions like different techniques used by the doctors, whether or not the patient could feel anything or even what types of music the surgeons listen to during the operation. While this all sounds incredibly irresponsible and dangerous, it actually is safer than it sounds. During the procedure, there is always a seasoned staff of medical officials tending to the patient while whoever is not doing something Tweets abput what is going on.

This new experience has gotten so popular that at the Mayo Clinic, the hospital hosted a what they called a "tweet camp". The camp taught doctors, nurses and other officials about Twitter and other social-networking sites. One of the best things about Tweeting live surgeries is that a doctor can post an answer to a question one time and instantly have it accessible to thousands of people instead of having to answer that same question over and over again for each person. The Mayo Clinic is very serious about their on-line out reach. So much so that they even have a person whose only job is to handle the Mayo Clinic's on-line outreach. The Mayo Clinic posts videos on YouTube for people who are looking for videos about things, photos on Flicker for those looking for photos, and now live surgery updates on Twitter.

People are now asking doctors to Tweet about their surgeries on-line as well. The reason for some people doing this is to reach out to other patients needing the same surgery and trying to show them what is going on in hopes to put them at ease a little bit about their procedure. There is no doubt that people are nervous when they go in for surgery. But the doctors that Tweet their surgeries do it so they can relieve some of that pressure and fear from their patients. It is a way to explain the unknowns about whatever procedure someone is going in for.

The generation we live in today is used to displaying their whole lives on-line. It is obvious that the people of this on-line generation are the future doctors and surgeons of tomorrow. As the new generation takes the reins from the current doctors, expect to see a lot more on-line interactivity between doctors, patients, students, and interested people in general.

With sites like YouTube, Flicker, Facebook, MySpace, Photobucket and, of course, Twitter, you can expect more and more surgeries and procedures to be posted live on-line. This is just the way our culture is moving. We are a technologically driven society and this new technology is the future of our businesses and our lives. It will be interesting to see the directions things, like doctors Tweeting, will go.

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Monday, April 6, 2009

Nine Hours with MSI Wind U110 Eco Notebook

MSI Wind U110 ECO NetbookNew from MSI is a laptop that looks to revolutionize the mobility aspects of wireless notebooks by offering 9 hours of battery life from a 6 cell batter. This laptop model achieves such low power consumption by using the 1.6gHz Intel Atom Z530 CPU as well as several other power management features.

The netbook comes complete with ha 10 inch monitor with a 1024 x 600 pixel display, 1GB of RAM, 3 USB ports, 160GB hard drive, a 1.3MP or 2MP webcam, and a 802.11b/g or 802.11b/gn networking card with optional bluetooth. This laptop looks to maximize mobility and make your life more convenient. Wether you're watching a movie at home, working from a cafe, or browsing online while on vacation you can be sure that this laptop will keep up with you. The power efficient design of the U110 ECO makes it so you can keep surfing, blogging, and communicating with the world whenever you need to.

Although I wouldn't expect this laptop to be running high performance graphics and programs, its upgraded mobility functions are more than enough compensation for those who are truly on the go and need maximum battery life at all times.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

New Blackberry Storm

lackberry StormThe world is changing. Our businesses these days are no longer strictly in an office. We travel all over the globe doing business with people from almost any country. In this busy world, it is necessary to have a device that allows you to access anything you would need to work on the go.

The Blackberry Storm is one such device. It is the newest installment in the world of smartphones. It has cutting edge multimedia capabilities that give you access to anything you need. The storm has a high resolution 480x360 pixle color display, transmissive TFT LCD screen which is also light senseing and supports over 65,000 colors. A 3.2 megapixle camera with auto flash, auto focus, and 2x digital zoom is also inluded. The camera also has video capabilities. Since it is a smartphone, it needs easy to use data input and navigation. The Storm has a SurePress touch screen, an on-screen portrait Suretype and multi-tap QWERTY Keyboard, and dedicated Send, End, Menu, and eturn keys. The Storm is also Bluetooth capable with Bluetooth v2.0 enabled. This Blackberry, like most, is a media player. It supports video formats in MPEG4 H.263, MPEG4 Part 2 Simple Profile, H.264, and WMV. It has a 6hr talk time battery life and a 15 day stand by battery life which allows for long use. You will never get lost again because the Storm has stand-alone and assisted GPS as well as Blackberry Maps. The storm supports and expandable memory that supports a microSD card, 1 GB onboard memory and a 128 mb flash memory. The wireless capabilities are also very good. The Storm's wireless network sports UMTS/HSPA: 2100 MHz, 850 MHz and 1900 MHz GSM/GPRS networks in North America, a 900 MHz and 1800 MHz GSM/GPRS networks in Europe/Asia Pacific. You also won't have to worry about your device's security. The Storm has password protection, screen lock, sleep mode, support for AES or triple DES encryption when integrated with Blackberry Enterprise Server, FIPS 140-2 Compliant and optional support for S/MIME.

Needless to say the new Blackberry storm has everything you want and more in a smartphone. It is top of the line and will surley satisfy any of your needs while working on the go. The Blackberry Storm will run you around $199.99 for just the device plus extra for the plan. But in my opinion, well woth it if you work on the go and are in need of a capable smartphone.

Friday, February 27, 2009

SunCat Batteries Providing Solar Charging

The new solar-powered phones like the Samsung Blue Earth are a great eco-friendly concept. You probably won’t see the sun-powered phones replacing mainstream handsets anytime soon. With many other gadgets needing to be checked on and made better. Knut Karlsen believes that integrating flexible solar cells onto rechargeable batteries could be a more immediate solution to reducing our carbon footprint.

The SunCat involves flexible solar cell strips glued to nickel metal hydride rechargeable cells. It is also named after a feline basking in the sun. A silver pen that is conductive and has flat wire recycled from a broken Canon lens Knut was able to get a little bit of charge connection. The first prototype was not ideal and he is currently working on a second model that may include a display for checking battery life and capacitors for more efficient charging.

One slight problem with this would be the battery would have to be smaller. They would be like this if the extra components were to be added into a regular cell. They are confident that the issues can be worked out along the way.

Monday, February 16, 2009

New Asus Eee 1002HA Netbook

Asus Eee 1002HAThe Eee 1002HA is the newest addition to the Asus family. This new netbook is a step up from its prdecessor, the Eee 901 and is a great laptop for use for work at home or on the road.

The Eee 1002HA has a 5400rpm 160GB standard hard drive with only 1GB of DDR2 RAM. The 1002HA also has a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 Processor which is great for running apps and programs for your job and it comes with an integrated webcam and Windows XP, Photoshop SEC 690, H.264 and Quake Live. It also has 3 USB ports, a VGA-out, audio in/out, ulticard reader, and an ethernet outport. It also comes with wireless bluetooth and weighs about 2lbs 12ounces. One particular feature that alot of peopel will be happy with is that Asus has integrated its multitouch trackpad which many people seem to like. It has a two finger dragging gesture that will totally replace the loss of your mouse wheel as well as a triple tap acting as a right click. The one thing this computer doesn't have that its predecessor, the Eee 901, is a longer battery life. The Eee 1002HA only has a three-cell battery as opposed to the 901's six cell battery. However the 1002HA does run up to 3 hours on a single charge.

But overall the Asus 1002HA is a great computer. It is very capable of doing anything you would need it to. It is a respectable recomendation to anyone who wants a hard-eorking, kong-lasting netbook and the nice brushed aluminum shell is good to look at too. This new Asus will run you around $430 which isn't a bad price.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Tired of car adapters? Get an AC inverter.

AC inverters to make travel easierIf you carry very many electronic gadgets with you in the car, you know what an annoyance it is to carry around both AC adapters for when you are at home or in the hotel, and DC adapters for using electronics in the car. Whether you need to power your PDA or laptop on the go, or just charge the kids' Game Boys, a DC power inverter in your car can save you the hassle of all those DC adapters.

Several models are available on the cheap, such as the XPOWER-175 by Xantrex, which can run electronics up to 150 watts, and has automatic protection against low car battery and overload.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Phanfare's Photon: Picture App for the iPhone

PhanfareEverybody knows about the online photo sharing services like Photobucket. But one you may not know too much about is a site called Pahnfare. Although being relativley unknown, Phanfare is a surprisingly good site and their new iPhone app is putting them back in the limelight.

This app, nicknamed Photon, could quite possibly be the best iPhone photo sharing app on the market. This is mainly due to Phanfares use of cloud storage and online gallery features which is integrated nicely into the iPhone, some new features added to the iPhone's own camera features, and the wonderful fact that this helpful app is totally free.

With the Phanfare app and plugins for your desktop, you can upload all your pictures to the service. You can get a free account with 1GB of space, or for a $55 a year account you can get unlimited accounts.

The interface for Photon is very similar to that of Apple's own photo app but comes with a few important changes. For example, you can access all your pictures from the phone and the built-in camera app comes with a picture stabalizer and a self timer. You also get the traditional greyscale, sepia, or auto scale features for your pics as well as the option to crop or add captions to your photos. A very cool feature is the ability to add music to your slideshows, though you can only do this through the site itslef.

The app caches your photos on the phone which allows you to run most of Photons features offline. Plus, you also get the option to choose how much disk space on your iPhone you want to dedicate to the cache so you only use what you want to use. The only downside, for now, is the fact that you do not have the ability to zooom in on your photos, though luckily Phanfare CEO Andrew Erlichson says that this feature will be added in the next version of the app due to apperar some time in the next 4 weeks.

Overall it appears that Phanfare's Photon is the best iPhone picture sharing app out right now for the iPhone. Its main focus is to give you easy access to all of your photos while also giving you the ability to share ttem with your friends. This is one iPhone app that will surley please anybody who uses it.