PHOTOS BY LIPO CHING - MCT
An HP TouchPad Tablet shows images of MRI slices thanks to apps that Stanford researcher Andrew B. Holbrook is developing at the university’s Radiological Sciences Lab to allow users to control MRI scanners.
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The future of webOS - the innovative mobile software that three successive Hewlett-Packard CEOs have struggled to make into a profitable product - may lie somewhere in the windowless rooms of a Stanford Medical School radiology lab.
That's where researcher Andrew B. Holbrook is working on ways to operate a cutting-edge, million-dollar medical scanner with the help of a discontinued model Palm smartphone that he bought online for $50.
HP had bigger things in mind for webOS when it paid $1.4 billion to buy Palm two years ago: Executives talked about putting Palm's critically praised software on millions of phones, tablets and even PCs. But after a predecessor abruptly abandoned those plans, CEO Meg Whitman decided in December that HP would release the code under an open-source license, which means other companies and individuals like Holbrook are free to come up with their own uses.
And while many experts say it's unlikely the software will ever supplant wider mobile operating systems from Apple or Google, analysts say webOS could find a new life if developers use it to create applications for specialized automotive, industrial or medical equipment, such as Holbrook's MRI scanner.
Stanford's Holbrook, who has a Ph.D. in bioengineering and a tinkerer's enthusiasm for writing code, has been working with other researchers on using the MRI in conjunction with new treatment techniques for removing tumors or unwanted cells without invasive surgery. But as a sidelight, he has used webOS software to create new applications for tracking and adjusting some of the MRI's functions.
Holbrook uses those apps on a modified phone, as well as an HP TouchPad tablet, from which he's removed most of the metal components so he can take them into the room where patients are treated with the massive magnetic scanner.
That can save time, he notes, and perhaps let doctors and technicians interact more closely with patients. Most MRIs are operated with bulkier computer equipment that sits outside the heavily shielded scanner room, both to protect the computers from the powerful magnet, and to prevent them from causing radio frequency interference with the MRI image.
"These are incredibly useful tools," Holbrook said of the webOS gadgets.
Holbrook added that he doesn't really want to go into the software business himself, but he's hoping that some health care company or medical device-maker eventually will pick up on his work.
Whether that creates any kind of financial return for HP remains to be seen.
