The Nokia Lumia 1020's biggest feature is its 41 megapixel camera and that impressive piece of hardware is being used to help medical research in tandem with microscopes, according to a new post on the Nokia Conversations blog.
The post has a Q&A with Dr. John Paul Graff and Dr. Mark Li-cheng Wu, who have used the Lumia 1020 to take pictures of the intestinal spirochetosis, which is just a few microns long. However, Dr. Graff states:
Nevertheless, we were able to take a photo with the Lumia 1020 on a low magnification and then zoom in significantly to identify the bacteria so it could be properly treated. You can then continue to enhance this image to see subtle features such as the shapes of cells, the colours of cells, how big or small they might be and if there's any smaller parasitic infections lying within it.
In addition to the fact that the Lumia 1020 has 41 megapixels, the camera's optical image stabilisation features allow for the phone to be held by hand through the barrel of the microscope and still come up with solid images. Finally, the pixel size on the Lumia 1020's camera sensor allows for lossless zoom when taking microscopic images.
Not only does the Lumia 1020 allow for the fast capture of these kinds of images, Dr. Graff stated the photos can quickly be uploaded to Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage service since most hospitals use Windows.
However, the doctors did have some friendly suggestions for improving the camera in the Lumia 1020 to help them in their medical research, such as a lens cover built into the device along with increasing the capture rate and resolution of images. Dr. Graff, naturally, adds, "Oh, and running with Cortana would be cool!"
What do you think of a consumer product like the Lumia 1020 being used for this kind of medical work?
Source: Nokia blog
