Click to Skip Ad
Closing in...

Microsoft Kinect transformed into surgical assistant

Updated Dec 19th, 2018 8:25PM EST
BGR

If you buy through a BGR link, we may earn an affiliate commission, helping support our expert product labs.

Microsoft’s Kinect motion and voice-based controller accessory was launched with gaming in mind, but researchers have taken the technology in a number of different directions. German researchers transformed the Kinect into an interactive augmented reality X-ray machine, and Microsoft Research is now in the process of trialing the use of its Kinect sensor as a surgical assistant.

On May 8th, a surgeon at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ hospital in London used a custom Kinect installation to browse through medical images and real-time X-rays while repairing an aneurism in a patient’s aorta, NewScientist reports. The system created by Microsoft Research allows surgeons to call up images or perform a number of other tasks without assistance and without having to touch anything, thus avoiding any potential contamination.

“Up until now, I’d been calling out across the room to one of our technical assistants, asking them to manipulate the image, rotate one way, rotate the other, pan up, pan down, zoom in, zoom out,” says Tom Carrell, a consultant vascular surgeon at Guy’s and St Thomas’. With the Kinect, the surgeon says he had “very intuitive control.”

Carrell is eager to continue trials with the system. “I thought this was going to be a lot more awkward to start off with, but I was very pleased with the way it went today.”

Read

Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein Executive Editor

Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 10 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.

His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.