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What Happened to the Autonomous Heart Surgery Robot?

November 1st, 2007 by iDunzo

In May 2006, Engadget and a few thousand other sites featured variations on this headline, “Robot surgeon performs world’s first unassisted operation“.

Some of the write-ups around the web told of how the robot had been trained in the relatively simple heart surgery that stops atrial fibrillation, which is caused by chaotic electrical activity in the heart (almost like epilepsy for the brain).

To treat the condition, surgeons burn some of the heart flesh, to short-circuit the nerves causing the trouble.

Apparently, an Italian doctor, Carlo Pappone, had gotten a robot to do this surgery. The last sentence of the Engadget post contained this tantalizing promise:

Pappone, who initiated and monitored the latest surgery from a computer in Boston while it was occurring in Milan, plans to release a commercial version of the unnamed robosurgeon later this month.

But here we are, almost 18 months later, and no such robosurgeon has appeared in the market.

So, I’m putting out an APB for Dr. Pappone, the creator of the world’s only autonomous heart surgery robot.

After some exhaustive searching, I haven’t been able to find any good information on what Dr. Pappone has been up to since last May.

Did the robot encounter problems? Is it snaking its way through hearts in Italy or the 3rd world, but not in the US?

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A Welcome Sight for Those in Peril Upon the Sea

November 1st, 2007 by iDunzo

November 1, 1859: The second lighthouse at Cape Lookout, North Carolina, is lit for the first time.

Cape Lookout is situated along the Outer Banks, a treacherous stretch of coastal shoals and storm-tossed seas that has always presented a navigation hazard to mariners.

The original lighthouse, built in 1812, proved an unreliable navigational aid, so Congress appropriated $40,000 (about $900,000 in current dollars) for the construction of a much larger lighthouse.

The Cape Lookout Lighthouse stands 163-feet high — almost 70 feet taller than its predecessor — and its powerful Fresnel lens casts a light that is visible up to 19 miles out to sea. This was a marked improvement over the original and set the standard for lighthouses up and down the eastern seaboard.

Painted in a distinctive black-and-white diamond pattern, the tower is itself a navigational aid, at least in fair weather.

The lighthouse, with nine-foot-thick walls at its base, was built to withstand the pounding made inevitable by its exposed location. It would ultimately save the structure — but from a landward threat.

Just 18 months after the lighthouse opened, North Carolina seceded from the Union. As Federal troops advanced through the Carolinas in 1862, retreating Confederates destroyed a number of lighthouses, including the Cape Hatteras light. They tried to dynamite the Cape Lookout light, but those nine-foot-thick walls defeated them. They did, however, succeed in damaging the lens, knocking the lighthouse out of service.

After the war, repairs were made, and the lighthouse has remained in continuous service since. The last resident keeper left in 1950, when the lighthouse was fully automated.

In 1972, the original Fresnel lens was replaced by two 1,000-watt aerobeacons, each measuring 24-inches across.

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AELight Xenide Shines a Light – Almost Half a Mile!

October 31st, 2007 by iDunzo

AELight’s Xenide flashlight doesn’t look like much. Slapped into a blisterpack in a big-box grocery store, slung up next to cheap Maglight knockoffs and overpriced clockwork LED models, shoppers might well walk past it, unaware of its lurking, immemorial power.

But this thing is $500.00 USD. Why? Because it packs metal halide lamps similar to those used in fog lights, and projects 900 lumens almost a kilometer away.

Powered by a rechargeable Li-Ion battery pack, this overpowered torch weighs a stiff 8 pounds and has a fixed-focus lens and water-resistant casing.

For your money, you also get a bundled AC charger, shoulder strap and travel box.

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Google Celebrates Halloween 2007

October 31st, 2007 by iDunzo

Halloween, or Hallowe’en, is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31 and today Google gives us a spooktacular logo:

Traditional activities include trick-or-treating, Halloween festivals, bonfires, costume parties, visiting “haunted houses”, carving jack-o-lanterns, and viewing horror films.

Halloween originated from the Pagan festival Samhain, celebrated among the Celts of Ireland and Great Britain.

Irish and Scottish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century.

Other western countries embraced the holiday in the late twentieth century.

Source: Wikipedia

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Samsung Claims DVD Speed Record

October 30th, 2007 by iDunzo

Samsung just released what it says is the fastest DVD burner on the market.

The Super-WriteMaster SH-S203N internal drive can write dual-layer DVD discs at 16x, compared with current drives that top out at 12x. Speeds for other formats range from 20x for DVD+ to 6x for DVD-RW.

The drive is $80.00 USD and includes SATA interface and label-design software for decorating LightScribe discs.

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Apple Pushes Out First Leopard Updates

October 29th, 2007 by iDunzo

Well that didn’t take long. Apple has already pushed out some Leopard-related upgrades that reportedly fix issues with Keychain passwords, Wi-Fi support, Aperture and Backup.

The most significant upgrade, and the only one that applies to all Leopard users, is the Login & Keychain Update 1.0.

The update addresses a rather obscure Keychain issue that affects accounts originally created in OS X 10.1, but also includes fixes for those having trouble “connecting to some 802.11b/g wireless networks.”

A couple of commenters on our Leopard first look story and other posts I’ve seen around the web reveal that the Wi-Fi troubles have plagued a fair number of users. Hopefully this update will fix the problem.

The other Leopard-related update released today is Aperture 1.5.6 which improves reliability when recovering Aperture libraries from a Vault (Aperture’s backup files) on Leopard, as well as a few other small fixes.

The updates are available through Software Update or directly from the Apple site using the links above.

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