We’ve all heard of GPS technology. But what of newer terms like ‘GeoTagging’ and ‘GeoFencing’. Nick Lee investigates

I can still remember buying my first TomTom GPS Navigator almost 10 years ago. We were planning a family holiday to France and thought it might be useful. It was, even if it did keep telling me I was driving on non-existent roads! With technological convergence I now have a fully functional TomTom app on my iPhone.

Nick Lee and Stephen Walsh look at the new features offered by Papers2 for PC and Mac

It has been almost two years since I first wrote about Papers1 for Mac. (http://tiny.cc/m5pglw). Papers2 allows you to organise, view, browse and search your PDF library. One serial number allows you to activate up to three copies of Papers2 on your personal Mac or PC. There are other PDF readers but this is my favourite and any PDF reader might save a few trees. I have it on all my Apple Macs and iOS devices.

Technology columnist Nick Lee reviews the Kingston DataTraveler 4000 USB Drive

Have you noticed how many of our colleagues have a USB drive attached to their lanyard? This got me thinking about what was on these USB drives and how secure was the data stored on it. Does your hospital have a code of practice on the use of USB memory sticks for the transfer of Personal Identifiable Data (PID)? What recent training have you had about information governance? Does your trust issue hardware 256- bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encrypted USB drives if you need one?

Technology columnist Nick Lee gets to grips with 3D printing and anatomical models for the surgeon

 3D anatomical models are not a new concept. In my specialty, medical models have been used for many years in the planning of facial surgery. I know other surgeons in plastics, orthopaedics and neurosurgery who are using 3D printed models or implants.

Medical models can be used to carry out virtual surgery prior to the definitive procedure and used as a template in the construction of implants, stents and pre-bending plates.

They can also be used as a prop in explaining an operation to a patient, allowing the patients to understand their surgery and therefore make better-informed decisions.

They are often used in the communication and decision making process between surgeons and as an aid in medical education.

Most medical models are made by additive manufacturing, “a process of joining materials to make objects from 3D model data, usually layer upon layer, as opposed to substractive manufacturing methodologies”. The process works by taking a 3D computer file and generating cross-sectional slices. Each slice is then printed one on top of each other to create a 3D object.