Halfway tripthe artificial intelligence company, is building a body scanner that can assess a user’s health by immersing them in water. In less than 60 seconds, the medical machine should produce a detailed 3D map of their body, including their tissues, arteries, muscles and nerves. It would allow them to detect (potential) medical issues in advance so that they can be addressed before they progress. It’s a lot like an MRI, but “as cheaply as possible” and without the need to schedule an appointment, the company claims.
THE Scanner during the trip it has a circular platform where the user stands and slowly lowers them into a shallow pool. The body passes through a large ring, which contains half a million tiny sensor squares that generate ultrasonic waves. These capture and generate terabytes of the user’s body data per second, which are then used to create the medical image.
Midjourney Scanner © Midjourney Medical
Midjourney Scanner © Midjourney Medical
Midjourney Scanner © Midjourney Medical
Midjourney Scanner © Midjourney Medical
Midjourney Scanner © Midjourney Medical
Midjourney Scanner © Midjourney Medical
Midjourney Scanner © Midjourney Medical
Midjourney Scanner © Midjourney Medical
Midjourney Scanner © Midjourney Medical
Midjourney Scanner © Midjourney Medical
Midjourney’s body scanner has no magnets or radio waves
It is an ambitious project that comes from Halfway tripof the new research laboratory branch. The company says that over the next 12 months, it plans to improve its algorithms and hardware every day, as well as conduct research tests, so that by 2031 it can roll out a fleet of over 50,000 scanners worldwide.enough to do regular monthly scans on a billion people.”
It is a utopian use of data and modern technology This suggests an alternative or even a replacement for traditional MRI scanning machines. Midjourney’s body scanner does not use magnets or radio waves and does not require 30 to 90 minutes of immobility inside a machine in a special room where metal objects near the user’s body could be vacuumed toward them. The company believes that submerging users in water for less than a minute and using a sensor-filled ring to read their body is enough to identify what’s wrong with their health and how they’re doing right now.
Sound waves may not read all parts of the body, unlike MRI machines
Previous studies have found that sound waves may not travel easily through bone or air, meaning they may not be able to penetrate certain parts of the body and see what’s going on inside because of the acoustic impedance mismatch.
Other research has shown that sound energy is blocked by half every 2 millimeters in bone and every 0.6 millimeters in air. In this case, when the sound waves of Midjourney’s body scanner try to read the user’s ribs and spine, those parts “block” the sound, preventing them from fully monitoring their condition. Adult lungs and brains present the same challenges because the former is filled with air, while the latter is encased in thick skull bone. Both can block the passage of sound waves.
Blockages in reading are a concern. there is also the early stage of artificial intelligence and the algorithms used to run the system. AI models are known to “predict” missing gaps in images, and this can happen when machines can’t overcome obstacles during reading. It can cause what researchers call AI illusionwhere the model produces images based on its own predictions rather than the actual state of the body.
Midjourney plans to open a spa with a body scanner
It is difficult to overlook these potential risks, especially when the user’s health is at stake and since the purpose of a medical body scanner is to diagnose diseases and plan treatments. In its announcement, the team behind the Midjourney body scanner says it will train and improve the machine’s algorithms on a daily basis, but has yet to share where it plans to publish the data, or at least updates and summaries of its findings.
A shallow pool health body scanner is certainly a new take on a medical imaging device, especially from a company known as AI Image Generator, but it needs to undergo feasibility studies and testing to determine if it can be as reliable as traditional medical devices in tracking and detecting health problems. And this is only important if this is part of the goal of the research lab, as they say that “regardless of whether our scanners are a service that everyone uses, for us, the most important thing is that everyone will be able to use them.”
In other news, Midjourney plans to open a spa with hot tubs, saunas, cold plunges and comfortable rooms that will house the body scanner. The team plans to open the first location in San Francisco in 2027 to gather “real-world knowledge of what that infrastructure will look likewhich may include data from users testing the machine. Next year, the company aims to release the third generation of the body scanner, with image quality and scan time described as “night and day” compared to the current version.
