Sunday, June 11, 2006

Indian eye doctors

This is an interesting development in tele-care, or mobile technologies of care: researchers at the University of California,Berkeley,and at Intel Corporation have developed a new technology "based on "Wi-Fi" wireless networks" which,"allows eye specialists at Aravind Eye Hospital at Theni in the southern India state of Tamil Nadu to interview and examine patients in five remote clinics via a high-quality video conference.

According to the article - 'New wireless networking system brings eye care to thousands in India' -

"The information technology revolution holds tremendous potential for addressing problems in developing countries," said Eric Brewer, a UC Berkeley professor of computer science and director of the Intel Research Berkeley lab who initiated efforts to develop the technology. "Historically, though, most projects have been either too expensive or too technologically complex to be used in poor, rural areas. What we've done here is develop a simple, inexpensive software and hardware system that can provide villages with a high-bandwidth connection to computer networks in cities as far as 50 miles away."

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