The Xbox 360 has won the hearts of millions of teenagers the world over.
But a computer scientist may have found a way to use the popular gaming system to detect defects in those hearts.
"While this is an exciting medical development, this effort was not driven by Microsoft," said Katie Abrahamson of Edelman for Microsoft Xbox 360.
Simon Scarle, a computer scientist at the University of Warwick in England, has discovered a way to turn the Xbox 360 into a device known as a "heart model."
A heart model delivers detailed information on how electrical signals in the heart move around damaged cardiac cells.
Doctors can use this information to identify heart defects and abnormal conditions.
The heart models currently used in hospitals often cost millions of dollars and are incredibly complicated, said Dr. Fred Kam of the Auburn University Medical Clinic.
Scarle, a former software engineer at Microsoft's Rare studio, found a way to use the Xbox 360 to recreate the more expensive, more complicated, heart models work.
Before hired at Rare, Scarle worked as a researcher using computers to model the activity of the heart, a process called cardiac computational modeling.
Scarle rewrote a code for the Xbox's graphic processing unit to mimic heart models, using a technique called general programming on the graphic processing unit.
The Xbox has a powerful graphics processor, which is why so many people are enamored with this generation of video games, Scarle said.
But it is because of its GPU that the Xbox 360 can be used for this process.
"If you can rewrite your simulation calculations in a form that the GPU can understand then you can use this power to do more general stuff, hence (general programming on the graphic processing unit)," Scarle said.
He said the idea for using the Xbox GPU as a heart model came when he was asked to produce a small game demo using Rare's code-base, fusing cardiac computational modeling and game coding into one system.
"I produced a gameified version of my cardiac research code," Scarle said. "This was a little shooter game that if you missed, your bullets excited the arena floor which then undulated in a way modeled by my old cardiac model."
Game consoles are frequently used in scientific and computational research because they provide researches with more computing power easily and at a lower cost, Scarle said.
But as far as using this for an at-home basis, Scarle said most people won't be able to.
"I'm afraid some of those aspects in some of the published stories are reporters getting a little over excited," Scarle said.
Scarle said his research was more specifically aimed at gaining a better understanding of graphic coding and processes than finding a medical application.
"My work was very much looking at simulating small samples of cardiac tissue and looking at how the electrical excitation that produces the contraction of the cells, and hence the heart beat, is distorted and blocked my small regions of diseased or damaged cells," Scarle said.
Microsoft declined to comment on whether this will alter their campaign strategy to market Xboxes toward a more medical-driven or research field.
"Sony have made a lot of hay out of the research that has been done on the Playstation, and I think Microsoft have missed a trick as the Xbox is far easier to program," Scarle said.
If this new technology develops into something doctors can easily access, it has the ability to re-engineer the way doctors care for patients, Kam said.
"It may help with the diagnosis and treatment, but not with prevention," Kam said. "That is mostly up to the patients."
Scarle said he hopes his research will have two different influences.
First, it will become easier for students and researchers to get funding for additional computing power, even if it is in the form of video game consoles.
Second, it will spark children's interest in science.
"If research done on games consoles can interest kids in science in this way, that in itself is brilliant achievement," Scarle said. "Current generation games consoles are the cheapest 'bangs per buck' computer hardware you can get hold off, and it would be great to see some of that power being put to good use and not just for shooting at aliens."
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