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Alt-week 9.29.12: 3D pictures of the moon, 4D clocks and laser-controlled worms
Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days. Dimensions, they're like buses. You wait for ages, and then three come along at once. And then another one right after that. While that might be about where the analogy ends, this week sees us off to the moon, where we then leap from the third, right into the fourth. Once there, we'll learn how we could eventually be controlled by lasers, before getting up close and personal with a 300 million-year old bug. Sound like some sort of psychedelic dream? Better than that, this is alt-week.
3D medical display utilizes gesture-controlled interface
Though not quite as intense as HD surgery, we'd say this thing could still project some pretty startling results. The display shown above, which was developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich-Hertz-Institut HHI in Berlin, relies on a pair of cameras mounted overhead and a single one integrated into its frame to capture exactly what angle the physician is gazing in at. Subsequently, the doctor can simply wave his / her finger and the image will rotate and shift as commanded in order to provide a more detailed look while keeping things as sterile as possible. Essentially, this system weds your average 3D display with a less common non-contact user interface, and while hard pricing deets weren't disclosed, the team suggested that even smaller medical practices should be able to squeeze this into their budget.[Via medGadget]
