Eric Johnsen has joined the APX Labs management team. For more information about Johnsen, read the press release.

TruLife Optics introduces its first generation of waveguide technology. TL1 is a clear low iron-glass waveguide with two holographic couplers bonded transparently onto the waveguide for introducing and exiting the data to and from the waveguide.

To learn more, watch the video, visit the company’s web site and check out the technical specifications.

Infraworks is a new tool introduced by Autodesk focusing on the conceptual infrastructure space to allow stakeholders to get a visual perspective of design. Infraworks is not limited to infrastructure but is a useful tool in the building space for conceptual visualisation through to design coordination.  Modeling of the existing site and proposed works is supported within Infraworks. Even the site’s constraints can be visually demonstrated on-site using Augmented Reality to allow stakeholders to get a better understanding and reasoning of the how and why of the design.

To learn more, visit the company website.

CLEVELAND – Surgical Theater, LLC today received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance on the recently launched Surgical Navigation Advanced Platform (SNAP).  The SNAP integrates with operating room technology to provide advanced 3D capabilities and augmented reality, allowing surgeons to enhance their surgery performance and “see what cannot be seen.”

The SNAP is the second of the company’s line of products combining flight simulation technology with advanced CT/MRI imaging for use in brain surgery to receive FDA clearance. It enables surgeons to perform a real-life “fly through” of a “patient-specific” surgery and receive unique virtual reality guidance to determine the safest and most efficient pathway to remove cerebral tumors and treat vascular anomalies.

With the SNAP, surgeons can execute their surgery plan while in the operating room utilizing a patient’s CT/MRI scans, allowing enhanced accuracy and efficiency. It provides the ability to rotate the image or make it semi-transparent in order to see behind arteries and other critical structures, something not possible until now, affording for accuracy to be sustained during complex procedures. Also, SNAP’s augmented reality and simulation capabilities allow surgeons to analyze virtual “what if” scenarios before making the actual incision.  This precision enables surgeons to gain clinical insight that was previously unavailable.

“We have used the SNAP in the operating room in a handful of surgeries. The SNAP’s realistic 3D imaging is one-of-a-kind and has been introduced as an integrated OR device for the first time at our medical center,” said Warren R. Selman MD, Chairman, Department of Neurological Surgery, University Hospitals Case Medical Center.  “It is just like watching a football game when multiple cameras are located around the arena and an editor can freeze the image, rotate, zoom in, zoom out and see things that he could not otherwise see. In my recent surgeries, I was able to pause the navigation scene during the surgery to rotate the image and to verify that I removed the entire tumor and to make sure that I was within a safe distance from a vital artery while removing the tumor.  With the SNAP connected to the OR navigation platform, the OR team coordination is enhanced, and we are utilizing the best imaging technology tool to benefit our patients.”

Surgical Theater’s first product, the Surgical Rehearsal Platform (SRP), paved the way to the operating room by providing surgeons with a way to plan and rehearse their surgeries outside of the operating room.  To date it is estimated that the SRP has been utilized by surgeons wanting to pre-live their procedure more than 500 times. Now the SNAP will be utilized to take the pre-planned pathway into the operating room to be used during the surgical procedure thanks to its ability to integrate into operating room navigation equipment. In addition, the flight simulator technology used in the software permits remote connection of multiple platforms; participants anywhere in the world can simultaneously work together and practice the same case with real-time feedback and collaboration.

“We are extremely excited to expand our offerings beyond planning and rehearsing surgeries outside the OR,” said Moty Avisar, Surgical Theater CEO and Co-Founder. “The SNAP, our advanced imaging platform, allows us to connect to the operating room navigation system and become a part of the surgery as its performed, enabling a surgeon and OR team to achieve their goal of delivering the best care and outcome for the patient. We are witnessing strong anticipation from the medical community about this new technology, with multiple pre-orders for the SNAP already placed from hospitals across the country.”

Since Surgical Theater obtained FDA clearance on their first product in February 2013, SRPs have been installed in leading research and teaching hospitals across the United States. Hospitals include: University Hospitals Case Medical Center, University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, The Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, The Mount Sinai Hospital, Mayo Clinic, NYU Langone Medical Center, and others.

Surgical Theater has received generous recognition from the media.  Last week, the company was named in Forbes as one of 10 Health Tech Companies Changing The World.  Surgical Theater was also featured on CNN as a breakthrough technology in surgery, and also recently featured on FOX News and Extra.

Bloomberg TV features the use of Augmented Reality in surgery in this news segment. Watch the video for more.

Currently in design environments and scenarios, there are no real shared digital-creation platforms. Furthermore, designers must master some complex CAD software products before they can begin to share their design. A young London-based company is seeking to put design in the hands of more people using Augmented Reality.

The second-largest home improvement store in the United States will transform the in-store experience it provides to customers by building a room that enables customers to view a 3-D representation of their renovation projects before they start with demolition. The same technology can be used to assist in the process of manufacturing space design. For more information watch the video and visit the Lowe’s site.

Salesforce.com’s Wear cloud platform is a developer pack that is targeted towards app developers to create enterprise apps for all major wearable devices in the market. It allows developers to build on existing mobile apps on its Salesforce1 Platform.

For more information, read the article at Mobile Commerce Press.

During the SAP 2014 SAPPHIRE event in Orland, Florida, a panel included Bosch global mobile architect Sascha Markus. Markus asserted that IoT will be one of the biggest trends driving new innovations in industries like manufacturing.

“In five years we’ll see new device types, watches, glasses, anything you can imagine that will all be connected and sharing and bringing information to users,” he said. “This is great as connected devices have the potential to help our users and customers in a lot of ways.”

Markus highlighted Bosch’s success deploying Android smart glasses to its warehouse workers as proof of the industry potential for wearables and connected devices.

“We saw in our production sites we had lots of paper processes and had 150 SAP installations. With this setup, our workers just had desktops and were still printing off work orders, going to the warehouse and physically scanning the items there. This is not efficient,” he said.

“We thought, ‘let’s add smart glass to increase productivity and remove the paper process.’ We now provide workers with a smartphone and an Android smart glass to execute the process in the warehouse and have seen great success. Augmented Reality is the next step in industries like this.” Read more in this blog post.

Festo is a worldwide leader in automation and a world market leader in technical training and development. When presenting its projects to investors and customers, it uses an Augmented Reality-assisted poster. The Biomechatronic Footprint folding poster shows a selection of completed projects and illustrates the line of thinking from natural models to basic technical principles and bionic adaptation through to industrial applications. The Biomechatronic Footprint is suitable as a door opener to explain why Festo is involved with bionics and what advantage is gained from this method of procedure that is unique among its competitors.

For more about this project, read the blog post.