In case computer chips were a bit boring for you. Intel has come to the rescue. They've been working with several industry experts to improve the safety of American football helmets. The idea is to put tiny Atom microprocessors inside football helmets to measure and feed real-time impact data to medical personnel on the sidelines of a game.
Cool and also quite ingenious.
The world’s largest chip maker has already worked with football helmet maker Riddell and researchers from several universities, including the University of Northern Colorado, on computer simulations aimed at improving helmet designs and reducing player injuries. The simulations can help experts develop more reliable brain injury criteria and may in the future help doctors diagnose actual brain injuries.
Intel seems to like playing Doctor and is also working with the Mayo Clinic to speed up medical scans using Intel’s MIC (Many Integrated Core) supercomputer co-processors. The chips can run up to trillions of calculations per second, including in scientific research, exploration and climate modeling, Intel said.
The company said that in the future, Atom processors could be embedded in helmets and wirelessly transmit data to servers that measure head impact and injury risk in real-time so that medical personnel can respond faster to injuries.
So there you have it. One day the humble microchip could save your life. Well, if you're a pro-footballer.
Source: PCworld