Will a Robot Operate on You?

Could Microsoft have predicted the impact their Kinect system would have? Since its release in December 2011, engineering students have taken the gaming system apart and in efforts to find new applications for it.

Graduate students at the University of Washington recently had success creating surgical robots with increased touch ability. Surgeons rely on their sense of touch to avoid making mistakes like grazing a vein or scratching a bone.

Hacking the Kinect and combining it the force-feedback technology allowed the students to create a 3D model of the human body. The Kinect displays thousands of infrared dots that act as a surgical guide. The system can also enable "off-limit areas" that prevent the tools from causing any unnecessary damage.

The current Kinect technology uses 640 x 480 resolution cameras and a wide (living room-sized) sensing range, but the students plan on making upgrades to these areas moving forward. They hope that upgrading these features will eventually make their technology a cost-effective surgical option.

Would you be willing to undergo the knife of a surgical robot as these technologies become more advanced?

Source: Popular Science