A joint project is developing the Cell Chip from the PS3 to help improve medical Imaging

IBM has recently teamed up with the Mayo Clinic to develop a research facility aimed at advancing medical imaging.The joint venture into improving the way we view medical images is developing the cell chip from the PS3 to hopefully enable doctors and radiologists to track patients’ health and treatment more effectively.

Bradley Erickson, chairman of radiology at the Rochester-based Mayo Clinic said that researchers are specifically looking at how the PS3 Cell chip - which was collaboratively developed by Sony Corp., IBM and Toshiba Corp. - could speed up the imaging process.

“It changes how we think about things…..We are facing significant problems in medical imaging because the number of images produced in CT scanners basically tracks Moore’s Law. My eyes and brain can’t keep up. I see more and more images I have to interpret….

Erickson said,

“The innovation here is to take computer chips and extract the information in these increasing number of images and help present it usefully to the radiologist.”

With the computer the Mayo Clinic is now using, it would take a few minutes to run the algorithm and get the new and old images lined up successfully. Using the PS3 Cell chip, which is extremely efficient at doing raw computations, the process could be done in a second.

This time saved can mean a great deal when it comes to treating patients with life threatening conditions.

“This is focusing on the quality of the medicine” Erickson explains,

“We might take an image of someone’s brain tumor to see if it’s getting better or worse or staying the same. We’re looking for really subtle changes. You might find out after two months of radiation that it’s not working, and you want to switch their treatment. If you have a human interpret that image, they may not see any difference, and the doctor will have them keep on with that same treatment, which in reality is not helping. … We can have a computer take that image and focus more quickly on what areas need attention.”

He added that it’s not unusual to be thinking about using a gaming processor in a medical imaging machine. He noted that a lot of high-powered graphics cards and other gaming technologies are have previously been used in medical imaging.

Tired of getting out of the lazy boy to change games in your PS2? Well now you might not have to……A new firmware update for Memor32 – the PS2 modchip on a memory card – promises to allow your none chipped Playstation to play an entire library of games direct from the comforts of your own USB hard drive.

A group of Russian hackers named Memento are responsible for the firmware handiwork. The memory card chip mod couldn’t be simpler to use, now all that’s left is to get our hands on one to see how well it actually performs.

For those of you who own an older PS2 (the bulky version), there is another equally simple hack. HD Loader comes in the form of a DVD and can also hack your Playstation without the need for a chip mod. Using the PS2’s 3.5″ IDE slot and a network adapter, simply hook up your hard drive and run HD Loader in PS2.The HD loader has been around for some two years now but it may not have gained great popularity due to reports of compatibility issues; let’s hope the new update from the Russians will run a little smoother.

Sony Corp. has announced that at least 380 NEW Sony Playstation 3 games will hit the market this business year, in plans to bump up demand for the Playstation 3 gaming console that has so far lost out to widely popular Nintendo Wii.

According to game magazine publisher Enterbrain and research firm NPD, the Nintendo Wii game console has been outselling the PS3 by three to one in Japan and more than two to one in the United States so far this year. The cheaper price of the Nintendo Wii and the lack of exciting games available on PS3 have been widely cited as the main reason for the PS3 weak performance.

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