An endoscope includes a shaft assembly having proximal and distal ends and a longitudinal axis therebetween. A handle is coupled to the proximal end of the shaft assembly, and an elastomeric body housing an image sensor and at least one LED is comprises a distal end of the shaft. The elastomeric body is deformable between a repose straight insertion profile and a deflected offset profile by the insertion of a tool shaft through the shaft assembly and an expandable-collapsible working channel in the elastomeric body. The viewing angle of the image sensor is moved from a first selected angle to a second selected angle when the elastomeric body is actuated from the repose profile to the deflected offset profile.

A medical device comprises a handle including an actuator, a shaft extending distally from the handle, wherein the shaft includes a lumen, and a distal cap. The distal cap includes a body including a first channel, wherein the first channel is in communication with a distal portion of the lumen, a distal face including an opening, wherein the opening is a distal opening of the channel, and an expandable portion coupled to the body, wherein the expandable portion is configured to expand radially outwards from the body and to retract radially inwards towards the body from an expanded position. The expandable portion includes at least one light.

A Spectrally Encoded Forward View or Multi-View Endoscope, Probe, and Imaging Apparatus and system, and methods and storage mediums for use therewith, are provided herein. At least one apparatus or system may comprise a first waveguide; an optical system; and a diffraction grating. The first waveguide may be for guiding light from a light source to an output port of the first waveguide. The optical system may comprise at least a first reflecting surface and a second reflecting surface. The first reflecting surface may be arranged to reflect light from the output port of the first waveguide to the second reflecting surface. The second reflecting surface may be arranged to reflect light from the first reflecting surface back through the first reflecting surface to the diffraction grating. The diffraction grating may diffract light from the second reflecting surface in several lights/colors of non-zero diffraction orders in a first direction.

[Object] To make it possible to execute the insertion of an endoscope into an inside of an observation object more promptly, and to reduce the burden of an endoscope operator more.

[Solution] An endoscope apparatus according to the present disclosure includes: an endoscope unit at least a part of which is inserted into an inside of an observation object and that propagates an image of the inside of the observation object irradiated with illumination light; a light source unit that emits the illumination light illuminating the inside of the observation object to the endoscope unit; an imaging unit that captures an image of the inside of the observation object having been propagated from the endoscope unit and generates a captured image of the inside of the observation object; and a control section that performs driving control for the endoscope unit, the light source unit, and the imaging unit. A radiation angle of the illumination light is changeable, and the control section changes the radiation angle of the illumination light in accordance with whether an insertion portion being a part of the endoscope unit having been inserted into the inside of the observation object is moving in the inside of the observation object or has stopped.

Endoscopic visualization with variable frame rate of an image sensor on a per-frame basis. A system includes an emitter comprising a plurality of electromagnetic sources and an image sensor comprising a pixel array that detects electromagnetic radiation. The system includes a controller that synchronizes operations of the emitter and the image sensor. The controller instructs the image sensor to accumulate electromagnetic radiation and read out data according to a variable frame cycle comprising a plurality of frame periods. The system is such that a duration of each of the plurality of frame periods is adjustable on a per-frame basis.

An endoscope optical system unit includes an endoscope illuminating optical system and an endoscope objective optical system. The endoscope illuminating optical system includes a light-emitting section and a first optical-path deflecting prism group, which includes a first prism, a second prism, and a third prism. The endoscope objective optical system includes a lens group and a second optical-path deflecting prism group, which includes a fourth prism, a fifth prism, and a sixth prism. A direction of irradiation of illumination light by the endoscope illuminating optical system, and a visual field direction of the endoscope objective optical system, are variable by rotation of the prisms.

Endoscopic illuminator devices and methods are provided with an adaptive illumination profile. An endoscopic illuminator includes a first and a third illumination element adapted for coupling first illumination light into a light input of an endoscope for illuminating a central area of a field of view of the endoscope. A second and a fourth illumination element are adapted for coupling second illumination light to the light input for illuminating a peripheral area of the field of view, arranged relative to the first illumination element such that the first illumination light enters the light input at a substantially different angle from the first illumination light, and having an illumination level adjustable separately from that of the first and third illumination element. The second and fourth illumination elements provide imaging light in a different spectral band than the first and third illumination elements.

An endoscope system includes a convex-portion specifying section that detects a convex portion in a picked-up image of a subject picked up by an image pickup section, and a convex-portion-size calculating section that detects a convex portion in a predetermined size range on the basis of information concerning the convex portion. An illumination section includes a plurality of illumination-light emitting sections that illuminate the subject with lights in bands different from one another from directions different from one another. The plurality of illumination-light emitting sections are provided on a distal end side inner circumferential surface of a cylindrical cap attached to the distal end of an insertion section of an endoscope to specify an image pickup range of the image pickup section.

[Object] To provide an information processing apparatus, information processing method, and program, capable of interpreting the meaning of a result of voice recognition adaptively to the situation in collecting voice. [Solution] An information processing apparatus including: a semantic interpretation unit configured to interpret a meaning of a recognition result of a collected voice of a user on a basis of the recognition result and context information in collecting the voice.

A wearable otoscope may be capable of wireless or wired communication with a second device, such as a smart phone. Some dual-ear otoscope implementations may be provided in a headphone-like configuration, which may include a headband attachable to earbuds of the dual-ear otoscope. However, some alternative implementations do not include a headband. At least a portion of the dual-ear otoscope may be a disposable component in some examples. In some implementations, functionality of the dual-ear otoscope (such as an illumination angle of light, imaging functionality, etc.) may be controlled according to commands received from the second device. Some examples may include one or more additional sensors, such as temperature sensors.