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Bionic Retinas Give Patients Sight
The Noof writes "
Yahoo News is running a
story about patients who have been given partial sight thanks to implants
of silicon-based bionic retinas.
" The article notes that the implant is having a "rescue effect" on the other components of the retina, restoring cells around the implant and making them useful again." Amazing stuff.
How long until they offer an "improved" version, that has an overlaid clock/calendar, or just a HUD connected to the implanted, bone-conductive phone?
How about that "cybog" professor and all the hassles he had getting past airport security. While these things are tiny, I can easily forsee a future whene implants are regulated country-by-country.
"Sorry sir. Memory-storage implants are not legal in Canada. You must reboard the airplane."
Johnny Mnemonic, here we come.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Optobionics is using the energy in the light to do this, which differs from alternatives (the epiretinal approach) which requires external power sources and are therefore big fat and clunky.
Could this technology have a function in cameras?
What kind of interference will upset the function of this device which wouldn't affect a normal eye? Can it be remotely manipulated in such a way as to malfunction or function in a way that a remote attacker may desire it to function?
The fact that I have to ask these questions makes me hesitant to put electronics in my head, but I can imagine that the concern would be less for someone who couldn't see without them.
I was wondering how in the world it was powered. Come to find out, it's just a bunch of tiny solar cells according to
this article at How Stuff Works.
The light coming into the eye is focused on the retina. Solar cells convert light to electricity. Electricity stimulates optic nerves. Voila --Sight!
Well, I'm sure you've all thought about it. Science can help the lame walk, help the mute communicate, and now it lets the blind see. I wonder how long the ultra-right can continue condemning science as evil.
Let's build on that. How dense could the sensors get before the optical limits of the eye would become the bottleneck?
Also, since these things are using the photo-voltaic effect to generate the electrical impulse, isn't there a limit to how well they would work in low light? Can that limit be overcome? Could they build units that grabbed inductive power from a transmitter in your glasses to overcome that problem, or maybe even allow super night vision? Will future soldiers be encouraged to get such implants? On the opposite side of that equation, would they allow you to look at the sun without being damaged?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Absolutely seriously. My eyes aren't in that bad of shape, but they aren't exactly perfect either. Plus I can't see IR or UV. If bionic eyes were tested enough to be completely safe and healthy for the body, as well as 99.999% reliable (preferably 100%), they could be considered a reliable replacement. Add in a few features like integration into computing systems, switching between UV detection, IR detection, and traditional visible light detection, etc, and you would have some really awesome eyes. I would absolutely pick up a pair of these if they were cheap enough and fail safe enough. It would almost be a step toward Predator type systems, just get me a shoulder cannon and I'm all set
It's a common fallacy to think that 20/20 vision is "perfect", and that anything better is somehow "miraculous". There are many people with better than 20/20 vision. Hell, I used to be one, until I hit puberty and started wearing glasses - really freaked my mom out to be told that I had better than 20/20 vision. Made me feel a bit freakish, truth be told.
Also keep in mind that "seeing something 20 feet away like it's 10 feet away" just means you might see a tiny bit more detail - at 20/20 vision most people can see damn near perfectly out to a LONG distance. Really makes me wonder why someone with 20/20 vision would risk their eyesight just for a marginal improvement.
On this note, anyone remember WHY they chose 20/20 as the standard? Was it arbitrary?
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Better yet, if these malfunction in conjunction with other sense that may be "bionicized", in such a manner as someone is led to believe that they are stumbling over a chair or running into a wall, does this mean they really are? I mean, if you "scrape" yourself on something rough, even though you haven't, and you look at your arm and it appears bloody (even though other people see that it is uninjured), and then touch it and feel the wetness of blood, have you been injured?
Is your company running tools written by ma
All hail Geordi LaForge, prince of nerdiness!
:). Allthings aside, if they could not be snooped (Van Eck Phreaking a body is about the worst way you could violate a person, IMO), and could not be EMFed easily (and I mean that these things should stand so much gauss that my blood would disassemble first), I might just get some bionic eyes too.
Just Kidding
And, for the inner pervert in us, if these things could see IR well enough.. Well, just think about the Sony Handycam. Cheers!
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
That there is no "blind-community" counterpart to the deaf-community
Rather, there is no apparent blind community to those who are not directly involved with it.
Having blind family members, I can say that there is actually a very large blind community, which I believe is necessary. It is important to realize that people with certain types of disabilities have different struggles and lifestyles then the general population, and being involved with others who share the same experiences can definately help in making life a little easier and pleasent.
Also from my experience, people who have been blind from birth or early childhood would likely not chose to have an implant/surgery to correct the blindness for a few reasons.
First, those adults who were blind from birth have areas in the brain responsible for sight that are not developed because they have never used them. If one of these people were to undergo a operation to correct the blindness, the person's brain would still not be able to interperet the stimulus in a coherent manner. They would see, but they wouldn't understand what they were seeing.
Second (even if the first was not an issue), could you imagine viewing the world in a certain manner, and then one day, having all your preconceptions about everything shatter?
People who have been blind from birth have never seen(duh!), but they do however have an understanding about seeing (ie. colors, patterns, etc.). This differs from the actual experience of seeing as we know it, and taking those concepts away would be tramatic. Most people would be unable to cope with this.
Lastly, this is part of who the person is no matter how much it is disliked or how much of an inconvience it is. It is accepted, much like other things that (for the most part) cannot be changed. Having a hatred for something that is a piece of one's self, that cannot easily be changed, is unhealthy. So is having false dreams about "miracles" or "cures".
Yes, 20/20 is mostly arbitrary. The neumerator denotes the distance (in feet) the test is given at. (Usually 10 feet, but they use a mirror to double the distance to the standard 20 feet.) The denominator denotes the distance (in feet) at which the critical feature of the letters/numbers/shapes subtends one minute of visual angle. (Is that not a A answer, I'll find out on Friday)
USA-Democracy is 270 million YESes and NOes a day, not one every four years.
People who are born with visual impairments that can be corrected with technology (i.e. not visual cortex failure) have very low chances of worthwhile results.
When the brain never receives stimulus in a cortex, it never forms any pathways. That portion of the brain, while functional, makes no connections with anything else. A person with visual implants might be able to see as well (maybe better) than you and I, but they wouldn't understand what they saw. They would have technical function but no visual acuity.
This same issue has been demonstrated in people who grew up deaf. They may obtain the ability to hear, but understanding is something they can most likely never acheive. The new sense has missed the "formative" years of the brain, and the individual will never be able to use the sense as others do.
For those who have a hard time comprehending this concept (which is completely understandable), liken it to suddenly having wings surgically attached. Sure, you may have wings, and it's physically possible to fly, but you've never had wings before. They don't work like arms or legs, and you'll probably never learn to control them well enough to fly.
If you still aren't sure, watch At First Sight. It shows quite well the problems a person would face were they to regain sight. And keep in mind, he once could see.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
I think you underestimate just how good human biological vision really is. It is easy to think at first that rods and cones are just like CCDs or pixels or whatever. It is far more complicated than that. In fact, there is extensive research that demonstrates that you can see in higher resolution than should be optically possible. The reason this works is complicated, but basically comes down to the fact that there is an immense amount of inter-cellular interpolation going on. It can be modeled simplistically as an array of voltage sources.
A good starter paper might be the classic "What the Frog's Eye Tells The Frog's Brain" by McCullough, Pitts and Lettvin. (From MIT's RLE Lab in the 50's) More recently, Marr's stuff is supposed to be very good.
Nonperiodic Central Trajectory
WOW this is the greatest news I have heard all year.... it has totally made my day.
Ok calm down... explanation time..
I have had retina reatachment surgery 3 times in two years. this is where they take your eyes out, cut open the 6 rows of stiches in each eye and stick the retina back on. They dont know what is causing it (not bungee jumping or a car accident) and everytime it happens my retina gets a little more cut up and i have all sorts of weird stripes through my vision.
Now you my say.. "tough luck, you have bad eyes, live with it" but you see my whole life is based arround my eyes. I am a visual effects artist for the movies (lately 3d modeling on a movie about a ring) my eyes are my livilyhood.
And so the chance that they are one step closer to being able to replace them matters more to me then anything i have heard all year.
So if this is the "limited potential" you are talking about mr katz then i'm not really sorry for getting excited for nothing
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