Augmented reality is also known as AR. AR a live view of a physical real-world environment with an overlay of computer-generated imagery. It's main benefit is to allow people to find information without having to be in front of a computer using a search engine. By simply looking at the environment, certain information will appear depending on what it being looked at, and what the person has chosen to view. What is being looked at is determined by the GPS position and the direction is determined by a compass. Both of these are now available in most new smart phones.

What the person decides to view as an overlay can be thought of as layers. For example they might choose to see restaurants, public transport information or even prices of objects in a shop. These layers can be switched on one or many at a time. Other permanent layers might include a clock or the current temperature.

Read more: Augmented Reality and it's Applications

A panel set up by the FDA has recommended by a vote of 15-0 that they will approve the first fully-implantable hearing aid for patients with moderate to severe hearing loss.

The Esteem®-Hearing Implant™ developed by Envoy Medical is different from all other microphone-based hearing devices (hearing aids, other middle ear implants or cochlear implants). This is because it uses the eardrum to process the incoming sound and thereby preserving a natural way of hearing. The Esteem®-Hearing Implant™ is 100% implantable and therefore invisible.

The device works by being implanted under the skin behind the ear. Sound waves travel into the ear canal and set the ear drum into motion by causing the bones of the middle ear to vibrate. The device senses these movements and delivers a customized dose of energy to the cochlea which then transmits the signals to the brain. The brain interprets the signals as hearing, which in turn provides the patient with improved hearing.

Read more: Esteem Fully Implantable Hearing System

Google Goggles is likely to be the beginning of augmented reality on a mass scale. It works by searching the web for information based on a picture or photo. Its been designed for smart phones as well as the chrome browser. Basically anything you see is what you can search. Due to concerns over a backlash from privacy advocates, Google has decided to blur faces that are used with the application. So it seems for now we have to live with only searching for objects and places.

Read more: Google Goggles Beginning of Mass Augmented Reality

In July Cochlear announced its latest hearing implant system the Nucleus 5. It then recieved FDA approval in September to begin selling in the US. It consists of the next generation implant and next generation external processor. The Nucleus 5 is the worlds thinnest cochlear implant and is 40 per cent thinner and two-and-a-half times stronger than the previous device.

Both the implant and external processor are compatible with the current Nucleus Freedom cochlear implant system, so the implant and the external processor can be released independently. Five research trials have shown that the Nucleus 5 speech recognition scores are higher than with other cochlear implant systems. Its built to last a lifetime and the wearer can relax around water with the water resistant sound processor.

Read more: Cochlear Nucleus 5 Hearing Implant

Surgeons at the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago have performed a robotic-assisted procedure to remove parathyroid glands without an incision or scar on the patient's neck.

Traditional surgery to remove the parathyroid glands, or the larger thyroid gland, involves making a 4-inch incision in the lower neck, leaving a noticeable scar after surgery.

A surgical team led by Pier Cristoforo Giulianotti, MD, chief of minimally invasive, general, and robotic surgery at the medical center, used the robotic-assisted da Vinci Surgical System to delicately remove two of four parathyroid glands on a patient suffering from hyperparathyroidism caused by chronic kidney failure.

One small incision was made under the patient's right arm, and another tiny incision was made in the chest to accommodate the robotic arms and endoscopic camera.

The parathyroid glands are often difficult to locate, according to Giulianotti, but the da Vinci system provides 3D visualization, enhanced magnification, and a greater range of motion to locate and remove the glands in the delicate and narrow space of the neck.

Giulianotti reported that he anticipates that many patients who need parathyroid and thyroid surgery, but who are hesitant to have an incision in the neck, will be excellent candidates for the robotic-assisted surgery.

In the United States, about 100,000 people develop hyperparathyroidism each year, according to the National Institutes of Health. Women outnumber men two to one, and risk increases with age.

[Source: University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago]

June 2008 - DARPA has been talking up the idea of threat-sensing binoculars for some time now, but it looks like it's now putting up a good chunk of cash to make 'em a reality, with Northrop Grumman announcing that it's snagged a $6.7 million contract to further develop its Human-aided Optical Recognition/Notification of Elusive Threats (or HORNET) system.

That'll use electro-encephalogram electrodes placed on a soldier's scalp to monitor their neural responses to the presence or absence of potential threats, which helps to train the system's algorithms and ultimately alert them to threats before their mind is actually able to process the information. The idea is that when you look at a far-off or partially obscured object without noticing it, your subconscious probably did notice it and tried, unsuccessfully, to identify it.

Read more: Bionic Binoculars by Northrop Grumman

Playing video games with high levels of action, like Halo and Unreal Tournament, can improve your eyesight, researchers at the University of Rochester have found. 3D Video Games Improve Eyesight Up To 20%. The improvement was remarkable: among a study group of non-gamers that were told to play action video games for a few hours a day, they improved their eyesight by 20 percent within one month.

The important factor was the type of gaming you do: Pac Man, Zelda and Mario aren't going to improve your eyesight; searching for fast-moving targets onscreen in a gaming environment with dark and light areas, like in Halo, will. This is because action gaming has a different effect on our brains, Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences, said in the study."Action video game play changes the way our brains process visual information," she said. "After just 30 hours, players showed a substantial increase in the spatial resolution of their vision, meaning they could see figures like those on an eye chart more clearly, even when other symbols crowded in."

Read more: Games and Gadgets That Improve Eyesight

University researchers reported that they have used nanotechnology manufacturing techniques to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights. Perfecting virtual displays could mean that traveling executives could surf the Net or check their e-mail on a floating virtual display screen that only they could see. It also would mean that drivers could see their speed projected onto the windshield, or gamers could become far more immersed in their virtual worlds.

"Looking through a completed lens, you would see what the display is generating superimposed on the world outside," said Babak Parviz, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington, in a statement. "This is a very small step toward that goal, but I think it's extremely promising. … People may find all sorts of applications for it that we have not thought about. Our goal is to demonstrate the basic technology and make sure it works and that it's safe."

Read more: Contact Lens With Virtual Displays