M2M : Machine 2 Machine

Here we have a doctor who used a laptop, BroadBand and remote Robot to perform a brain surgery. A flavor of things to come
I do not see a widespread use of this in the very near future for performing operations but the use of this set up for performing remote checkups and consultations will grow dramatically as the costs are aligned.

Quote form the article -

“Yes, it was a robot. It was amazing,” Jeanne MacDonald told her husband over the phone Thursday from her bed in the neurosurgery unit at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax.

On Wednesday, neurosurgeon Dr. Ivar Mendez replaced the battery and leads on a spinal stimulator that had been implanted in Ms. MacDonald four years ago to control her debilitating pain.

Earlier Thursday, without leaving his laboratory in Dalhousie University’s Sir Charles Tupper Building, Dr. Mendez used a robot to examine Ms. MacDonald’s surgical wound and help research co-ordinator Paula Chiasson, at Ms. MacDonald’s bedside, program the implant.

Relying on a laptop computer, a joystick and a broadband Internet connection, Dr. Mendez deftly steered the person-sized robot through the cramped space of a two-person room at the Halifax Infirmary.

With a pair of eye-like lenses above the robot’s fully manoeuvrable flat-screen head, Dr. Mendez zoomed in on the incision, took a picture for the patient’s record and checked the readings on the device used to calibrate the stimulator. He talked to Ms. MacDonald and asked Ms. Chiasson questions from two blocks down Summer Street.

Ms. MacDonald and fellow patient Heather Carver greeted the arrival of the steel grey robot, with Dr. Mendez’s face displayed life-sized on its screen, as if it was the doctor himself.

“It doesn’t bother me at all,” Ms. MacDonald said after the checkup. “I was just very happy to see his face.”

She said Dr. Mendez had also used the robot to check on her the night before from his home.

“He was like a kid with a new toy,” she said. “It’s so exciting.”

The robot, which began making rounds in Halifax about 10 days ago, is the first of its kind in Canada and one of only a few in North America.

Valued at about $200,000 and manufactured by InTouch Health of Santa Barbara, Calif., the robot was bought through an anonymous gift to the QEII Foundation.

Is M2M the next Web 3.0?
We had the
Web 1.0 our plain old internet
Web 2.0 = many definition – user generated content, fat applications, interactive applications etc etc
Web 3.0 = Internet for Machines

What does Web 3.0 mean?
Machines are able to share information and make collaborative decisions. There are more machines than people in the world. Autonomous traffic generated by machines i.e not originated by web surfing etc is steadily climbing up. The number of sensors deployed is increasing at a rapid pace. The technologies to form local networks, communication channels are steadily increasing – RFID, ZigBee, BlueTooth, and more. There is more intelligence and CPU processing power built into autonomous devices – think about your toaster from 10 years ago to the one today with all the fancy settings. Taken together this leads to a perfect storm – where the machines are now able to form autonomous groups to exchange information and react to it.

What are the impediments to the 3.0 evolution?
The lack of a killer application that dominates the market place and mind space – similar to what email did to Web 1.0.

Low Tech Remote Monitoring – A solution from Siemens that will provide weekly remote checkups on the health of the Siemens software and equipment

Siemens Medical Solutions Service Division (www.usa.siemens.com/medical) has added a new product to its already expansive portfolio of services. Remote CardiacIT Administrator, available on syngo® Dynamics Server or Acom.Net, is a server maintenance package that proactively ensures servers stay up and running, sparing cardiology facilities from costly downtime.

Servers require regular and consistent monitoring, especially mission-critical systems like the Acom.Net and syngo Dynamics servers because unaddressed problems can proliferate and compromise stability. Remote CardiacIT Administrator is a proactive, weekly monitoring solution that is manned by Siemens-certified technical engineers. They review system status events for application and server hardware errors, trends or potential problems with non-archived patient data, helping to avoid issues before they occur.

“With the Remote CardiacIT Administrator, Siemens Medical Solutions can remotely delegate many routine maintenance tasks. It allows us to further improve the uptime of our syngo Dynamics and Acom.Net servers for our cardiology customers,” said Randy Hill, vice president, Siemens Medical Solutions Service Division. “This solution offers a tremendous value in terms of saving administrator time and improving system stability.”

Ziphany’s M2M module better enables companies to remotely monitor, control, and optimize their assets. The module is systematically designed to seamlessly integrate into the processes of industrial, manufacturing, utility, municipality, wastewater, cell tower, datacenter, and service firms. Capturing temperature, pressure, flow, and security data are all examples of applications that may be applied to the module. While depending on client needs, the opportunities are endless…

With this module Ziphany can now offer clients a software solution that is viable for both energy and non-energy related web-based applications, giving companies the economic advantage of utilizing one platform for its data needs.

The Company

Novazone has partnered with Dust networks to provide continiuos monitoring of produce in transit using the Mesh technology provided by Dust Networks.

Application Type: Continuous Monitoring
Technology: Wireless Mesh Network
Cost Saving: Lower spoilage rate, Reduced Manual Monitoring

Novazone’s PurFresh product is integrated into a shipping container’s air flow system, and uses ozone to reduce decay, improve quality and enhance safety of fresh produce shipped worldwide. With the system, ozone concentration levels are monitored and controlled via wireless plant-level communications based on Dust Networks’ WSN products. The Dust-enabled solution allows all containers to be monitored from a central location in a shipping yard, with no need for monitoring of individual containers. By using Dust’s network-ready products, based on the company’s Time Synchronized Mesh Protocol (TSMP), Novazone was able to bring PurFresh to market significantly faster than it would have with other solutions.