Working in conjunction with the German ski wax producer Zipps and optomechatronic systems builder Opto (Graefelfing, Germany), an engineer at the German Ski Federation has developed a portable microscope to inspect the properties of different types of snow.

Engineers based at Microsoft Research (Cambridge, UK) have developed a system based on the Microsoft Kinect that allows surgeons to manipulate images in the operating theater.

Engineers at Sabic UK Petrochemicals (Redditch, UK) have improved equipment monitoring in hazardous areas with the help of ATEX explosion-proof digital cameras.

An electronic check which eliminates the need for costly processing by banks but preserves the simplicity and ease of a traditional check book has been designed by a team from York, Newcastle and Northumbria universities in the UK.

Geoff Roddick, the application engineering manager of Pleora Technologies (Ottawa, ON, Canada), is taking on the role of vice-chair of the GigE Vision technical committee.

A technology that started life in detecting faces and penguin markings in the Antarctic is being adapted to help aid operators of military radar screens.

A team of researchers led by computer science Professor Serge Belongie at the University of California, San Diego has developed an iPad app called Visipedia that will identify most North American birds, with a little help from a human user.

A team of Irish and Spanish researchers has developed a hyperspectral image processing system that could be used to sort nonferrous metals.

A researcher at the University of Twente’s MIRA Research Institute (Enschede, The Netherlands) has developed image processing software that can count the circulating tumor cells in a blood sample and identify them by type.

Researchers at Bristol University (Bristol, UK) are involved in a £500,000 project that will see them create a vision-based control system for legged robotic systems that can travel over complex terrains.

A new free-to-attend webcast from Vision Systems Design will focus on the fundamentals of machine vision.

The nonprofit Center for Innovative Technology (CIT; Herndon, VA, USA) has made a $100,000 investment in VanGogh Imaging (McLean, VA, USA), a developer of 3-D rendering software.

Scientists have developed a new imaging technique that could help doctors to predict a patient’s risk of having a heart attack.

As part of the so-called 'Forklift Eye' project, researchers from the Institute of Materials Handling, Material Flow and Logistics (Garching, Germany) are developing a vision-based system to improve the efficiency and performance of fork-lift trucks.