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Artificial Vision for the Blind
castanaveras writes "Canadian doctors implanted an artificial eye into a blind man - it performs well enough for him to be able to drive (admittedly in an empty parking lot)." We've done lots of previous stories about bionic eyes.
Now that they can replace your glass eye with one that actually lets you see, I guess my novelty glass eyes won't do so well... It would have been nice to see them go into production, the magic 8 ball eye, the screen saver eye, and the flashing 12:00 eye... I wonder how long it will be before someone works out how to advirtise directly to your brain by hacking your eyes... gives whole new meaning to feed my eyes doesn't it.
flinging poop since 1969
Actually it was done in Portugal to get around local regulations...
They weren't Canadian doctors. They were doctors from the university of St. Louis doing the procedure on a Canadian man.
I stole this Sig
"We have the technology."
Oh, and the million dollar man references are all lies: The procedure, hospitalization and equipment cost about $98,000 US..
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
In order to go to sleep, does the man needs to turn his artificial eye "off"?
"Jens and the other patients wear special sunglasses fitted with a miniature TV camera. The equipment attaches by cable to a tiny fire hydrant-like device implanted in the skull that connects to two electrodes on the surface of the part of the brain that controls sight.
In other words it connects to two electrodes on the surface of the visual cortex. Which is in the back of your skull. They have NOT implanted an artificial eye.
I just love these stories. It is a marvel of biotech and engineering. Maybe engineers have trouble picking up girls. Every day, in every other way, they make bigger and bigger difference.
These artificial eyes have lots of potential users that are currently employed as baseball umpires...
So if creativity was your only limitation, what would the ultimate artificial eyeball be capable of?
I assume it would have huge amounts of optical zoom capability. Would it also have some sort of CCD showing so that you could change your eye "style" on demand?
Maybe it could have a little hole in the middle of it setup to squirt "eye fluid" on people you don't like!
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
nokia hasn't started to implement this. With one of these :p
suckers connected to your speech-centre maybe we would
finally be free from those pesting cellphone addicted teens chattering
in cinemas
There were no actual canadian doctors involved, only a canadian patient... But Canadians are also developping a visual implant similar to the one cited in the article... You can find more info here, or here (in french). (the last article is from 2001... wonder what is happening right now...)
for the deaf. Now all we need is artificial intelligence for the stupid!
When will we get
Artificial Intelligence for the Stupid
Or better yet, when will we get artificial etiquette for trolls.
-Sean
When Can I Get My Third Eye Installed?
I knew an eminent blind person and researcher at a university who was often called upon to comment on or even to test artificial vision equipment being developed at the university. His usual response was that nothing beats a good guide dog. This demoralised some folks at the university who were trying to develop and get funding for a guide robot for blind people. That latter project made the headlines when it was the subject of a hilarious cartoon in a BMVA Newsletter a few years ago entitled "Guide Dogs for Blind Robots" (no online copy found).
Why oil price increase equals economic trouble (Score: Interesti
I just hope the system doesn't run Windows :)
Patient: "I can see, I can really see"
Doctor: "What can you see?"
Patient: "Well it's blue, am I looking at the sky?"
Doctor: "Oh hold on, I need to reboot and install the latest drivers.."
:)
Oh this is not really a big deal. Star Trek showed us years ago that you could make a blinde man see just by putting a hair-clip over the front of his face.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
X-ray Vision
Re-fillable pepergas squirter
LASER VISION
Night Shot
SUPER zoom
... http://www.artificialvision.com/vision/index.html has videos (mpeg) of the procedure and what the blind man can see (edge detect heh... good idea)
I really don't think this will be too useful except for the completely blind.
Even then there are other factors, such as learning how to see when you didn't see before.
On a side not, they said the same thing about Coucher implants and those are marginally useful only (they are limited in what they can do).
Applying a current across the visual cortex creates patterns.
Ho hum.
...this is actually nothing particularly special, since all the technologies are relatively well-known (among the right circles), and mostly invented by Dr. Steve Mann of the University of Toronto. According to Steve, what the patient actually perceives is more akin to contrast resolution, rather than anything that the visually unimpaired would call "sight".
What is perhaps more interesting, and more widely useful is the Eyetap technology itself. Essentially, Eyetap uses the camera and wearble computer to drive a small laser that mediates reality directly into the eye. For people who are not blind, but profoundly visually impaired, this technology may be a godsend.
Beam me up, Geordi LaForge!
I think the most important part of the article was the bit about not giving false hopes to the many folks who have been blind since birth. Since they will not have developed the ability to interpret stimulii from that part of their brain, this device will do them no good.
Properly marketed though, this device could do a lot for thos who have lost their sight from disease or accident.
Hopefully as the technology develops and is refined, they will also look into researching ways for those blind from birth to use this technology as well.
I wonder what will happen when bionic eys (ears, limbs, memory) are better than your perfectly functioning ones. Will people upgrade themselves like they do now with implants and plastic surgery? It's closer to reality with these great technological advances, but are we ready for it in our culture?
When I was yonger I used to wonder whether I had the choice of losing sight or hearing which would I chose. Sight is so important to us. Yet to lose hearing would be to sacrifice music, which is my main pursuit outside of work. Also, it would be less of a step down for me to lose sight than for many people. I was born with a deformed left eye. A strip down the middle of the retina is missing, and there's a separate, more complicated problem I've never bothered to learn about as well. I used to wear plastic-, then glass-eyes to mask it. The plastic ones were made oversized and have stretched the skin around the socket, and it became painful, but that just gave me the excuse I needed to give up wearing them altogethre. I feel proud to have a problem that isn't and not cover it up, and rarely think about it, and have friends and family completely forget about it.
It's better to be born that way than to lose an eye for several reasons. Obviously, the pain and anguish of losing an eye. Also the need for people in that situation to redevelop their coordination. The only disadvantage is that if you don't develop parts of your sight while you are young - like me, you don't develop it at all. There will be a limit to which the brains of people given sight mid-life will be able to use them. Stereoscopic vision will be right out (even people with squints that come good can have problems with this, like my father), and they will never develop the coordination that somebody with childhood experience can.
Still, developments like those in this story give you a warm feeling about the positive power of our scientific endeavours, and the benefits of progress.
My former rowing coach is a dentist. Somehow years ago we got to talking about his work, and gross medical professions. Consensus among the squad was that optic surgerey was the right up there with the most squeemish of them, and he commented that in a way he wished he'd put his energy into that field rather than his own. When we asked why he responded that for the same amount of work you get to fix people's sight, and that that's one of the finest gifts you can give somebody.
:)
Believe with me, my saplings.
There's been a long-recognized phenomenon discovered among people who have sight restored after long periods of blindness: Motivation Crisis
http://psych.wisc.edu/vision/courses/recovery.htm
http://216.239.35.100/search?q=cache:ZD8gWmH2aEYC
Notes on this phenomenon go back to at least 1771, with the publishing of the book "L'Aveugle Qui Refiise deVoir." By 1932, there was a book "Space and Sight" that concluded that "every newly sighted adult sooner or later comes to a 'motivation crisis', and that not every patient gets through it." Fortunately for this guy though, this problem seems to be more linked to people who lost their sight early, and then regained it much later, having to radically change their lives down to the tiniest mannerisms. It might have something to do with the time limitation they are putting on him, and the scientists choice of Jans, for his positive attitude.
Definetly an interesting topic on human psychology though. Hopefully with future inventions along this line, no one will be forceably blind long enough for such depression to occur along these lines. It makes one wonder though - will more distant technology create a new sort of "Motivation Crisis" in us if perception enchancements become widely available and used.
Ryan Fenton
I wonder how they have solved the problem of decomposition - the body's immune system is a powerful entity. Implant a silicon chip and the body will attack it and erode it. Implant it in a glass capsule and then how to make the electrical connections?
These things have been reported several times in the past but each time, it degrades within months and typically doesn't last even 6 months in the body.
So how "permanent" is this artificial eye? That is the question everyone wants answered. Does it require lots of external hardware to operate (as some older experiements have done). What kind of power source is required?
-- The universe began. Life started on a billion worlds...
-- Except on one where stupidity was there first.
The problem with advances like these is that everyone looks at them and thinks, "Oh, great stuff! Before long, we'll be able to let all the blind people see."
Which may happen... or may not. But in the meantime, people see it as a little less important to make sure that the world is accessible to those who are disabled, when they're convinced that a 'cure' is right around the corner.
Cochlear implants and bionic eyes and so on and so forth... they all sound terrific. And there will be people helped by these advances. Just don't let yourselves get caught expecting too much of them. And remember, programmers and designers out there, to make sure that your projects are accessible. Text needs to be readable by a screen-reader. Audio should have available captions. All that jazz.
I saw a documentary of a case study of this once. Apparently this kid lost his sight and hearing at a young age.
He later became pinball champion of the world, but upon regaining his sight and hearing, he led a cult until they revolted against him, and he lost everything.
I forget what the name of the documentary was.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Don't get me wrong, I'm very impressed by this device, and I hope it works out.
However, the visual cortex is not the end all-all be-all of visual information in the brain. Visual information on the way to this cortex is first passed through other areas of the brain, such as the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus, which process the information, and also allow it to interact with other brain areas.
Based on my knowledge of the intricate, piecemeal nature of brain design, these pre-processing areas are probably involved in some fairly important low-level, reflexive aspects of vision. Bypassing them may restore the conscious aspects of vision and allow a great deal of function, but will miss out on some other aspects of vision that we are not consciously aware of.
Repairing the optic nerve is the only way to get real vision.
But that's step #1000, kudos to these pioneers for having the courage and ability to do step #10.
AOL will probably market "AOL Eyes'. At only 1.5x the cost, you get "special product offers" exclusively available to AOL Eyes users. Each eye will have a seperate, full screen window inside of an mdi interface with no tasklist. It will crash whenever you turn your head too fast, and it will take your brain down with it.
So easy to see, no wonder its #1 among the morons of the world.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Mother: "Junior, what were you doing at your girlfriend's house last night??"
(18-year old) Junior: "Um... nothing mom!!! *turns red, obviously hiding something*"
Mother: "Junior, plug in your eye now, let me see!!"
--pi
Actually, AMD stock rose $1.50 on the news that they would provide cheap, onboard processors for visual implants.
Patients' complaints about the heat will be drowned out by the scream of cooling fans.
It all goes downhill from first post
Regular porn is probably too small, so
I imagine the Canadian gentleman can now print out ASCII porn for his viewing pleasure.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
I hate it how this article tells you how people can only see to a limited degree, but it doesn't go on to tell you how limited. Like what is the resolution behind these puppies? Refresh rate? Even better why don't they actually tell us about the technology behind them. How they work. That would be way more useful than the knowledge that somebody just got one. I want to know how it interfaces with the brain so I can supplement my vision damnit!
Oh yeah and imagine a beowulf cluster of these, j/k.
Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
....If eventually these artificial eyes will get so good that people with good eye sight will start having their eyes replaced.
God, I guess if I were blind, I'd want to get this too, but that "beep beep beep" noise it makes every time you use it would drive me nuts. I don't know how Steve Austin dealt with it!
:-)
It appears that this device sees visual specectrum waves, but couldn't it work just as well with other frequencies? The hard part was hooking it up to the guy's brain, and it appears they got that to work. It shouldn't be any issue at all to substitute a more sophisticated camera. Doing so could allow them to make a spread spectrum version, that would allow the "blind" guy to see visual waves usually, and infrared during the night/fog/etc. They could even see through buildings.
Tim ODonnell (trying to be the most
Personally I think it's just a matter of time before electrical stimulators will replace the long cane, Braille and guide dog," Dobelle said. "It will be a gradual process. It could take the rest of the centuru
I'm sickened by how so called normal people think visially immparead and deaf people are sop,me incapable freaks who want to turen themselves into sickrobot like creatures just so they can "enjoy" questiohnable civilisation advnaces (like polluting the world in you private car?) The Blind have a very rich and well developed culture based Braille and they are not about to reject it. BTw, according to statisics most ppl who were born blind wouldnt want the 5th sesnes artificially implanted into them.
Stop the gencide now.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
After all these years since I lost my vision, I can finally play pool! Now all I have to do is get this system, that system, and one of those goggles that let old ladies wear sunglasses while they read. I'll be so popular!
Tim ODonnell (trying to be the most
Give a big enough empty parking lot and a blind man can drive WITHOUT an operation!
Remember: during development, the optic nerve is part of the brain itself, and the amount of circuitry inside the brain proper which is tuned for visual processing is immense. Getting individual pixels into the brain -- the current accomplishment -- is of course a technical acheivement. But processing it like sighted people do is a challenge of similar magnitude to brain transplants. On the other hand, it might be possible for those who've lost their vision. (But those blind since birth is another story entirely.)
"The device doesn't work for all types of blindness. People who were blind from birth, or who lost their vision in childhood are not expected to benefit because their visual cortexes would not have developed fully, Smith said."
Suppose this wasn't the case, and you could give sight to somebody who had never seen before. Would their brains be able to interpret the flow of new information?
Here's the argument for...
Any thoughts?
His first worsds after getting the implant of his new eye turned on "I am married to YOU!?!?!"
.
Just imagine, if he goes to the theater, he'll be violating the DMCA.
"Derp de derp."
Who, the... ?
I am suprised that RIAA or MPAA has not attempted to integrate Digital Rights Management software into this thing. That would plug the analog hole for sure
I hope they try some experiments with this. Maybe place the camera on the back of the head, or array a large number of cameras around his body. See how the body reacts to unusual input data.
I live in Kingston. I'm here now.
I wonder if I met this guy, I've been to some blind functions (had a blind girlfriend some years ago).
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
on a side note (at the risk of being rated down), is anyone in the slashdot community actively and consciously creating accessible websites? at this point in artificial vision technology, no one has yet to create a widely accepted, usable solution. there are too many diseases, too many causes of blindness to deal with to see a fix-all solution come about... so the best solution is to either ensure that a site is accessible, or design an accessible alternative site. you would be surprised at the number of blind people who are online these days. my little brothers and my father are always complaining that my mother is using up their broadband bandwidth at home with her usage.
at any rate, it's something to consider.
I'm always on the look out for news about eye replacements and chips. As a person who was born with the condition "acromatopsia" I desire to have complete vision. However as I read more about these devices it seems nearly impossible that I'll ever be able to see properly due to the fact I was born with my impairment.
To give a bit of background on my condition, acromatopsia is a mutation of the rods and cones of the retina so images that pass properly through the pupil become garbled or don't pass through the retina at all. This is most often found as a latent gentic trait passed down from residents of a certain island (detailed in the book Island of the Blind) whose eyes have developed differently. Visual problems range due to the amount of improperly formed or non-existent rods and cones. I myself can see but I am near sighted and can only see about two arms lengths away from my face before things become too blurry to discern. I see all in greys (not the "classic" colourblindness) and am super-sensitive to light. This is why "acromatopsia" is often called "night vision" because photophobia is a common symptom and actually helps to make things visible at night.
What concerns me most is if the cortexes of my eyes are developed enough to use these new technologies. I can see if only up close but due to the extreme photophobia and lack of colour vision my cortexes may not be suited for an upgrade. It might be like trying to connect an Apple IIe to an Athlon if you get my drift. Anyone know anything about this? As both a programmer and an artist it's really hard to work when I can't see well, can't tell colour, and have to wear creepy black shades because otherwise I'd be running around screaming "IT BURNS! IT BURNS!".
Righty-o.
Starkle, starkle, little twink.
you're fucking retarded, you fucking cuntbitch. oh no, Canada's cold. Let's make fun of the retardedly obvious shit about the country! It's not funny anymore. Chew balls.
Lost an eye to cancer when I was young (retinoblastoma), but my understanding is that this solution is not for everyone:
"The device doesn't work for all types of
blindness. People who were blind from birth,
or who lost their vision in childhood are not
expected to benefit because their visual
cortexes would not have developed fully,
Smith said.
But people who had vision, have intact visual
cortexes and have memories of what a tree or
a building look like are able to recognize
them using the artificial eye, he said.
"
My current 'glass eye' cost $1K and is made of silicone.
?sp
(* His high expectations of sight let him down, and in general he found the world dreary and depressing in all its imperfections. *)
Imagine getting sight, and then seeing Linda Tripp. It could understandably drive one right back to blindness.
Table-ized A.I.
now he can't go out with the ugly girls anymore...
The very bizarre French movie "Cité des Enfants Perdus" ("City of the Lost Children") has a large group of characters who are blind and who have their vision restored by... (drumroll)... head-mounted cameras that plug into connectors attached to the visual cortex. Well, I assume it's the visual cortex, it plugs into the head in any case and the movie doesn't go into anal-retentive detail or anything. The single lens means they only have monocular vision, and the (presumably) low quality of the whole piece of kit means that the parts of the movie shown from their points of view are tinted green and have scanlines and a lot of background noise. This lets them see well enough to fulfill their task, though: kidnapping children so that a twisted, genetically-engineered genius can steal their dreams. (I told you it was a strange movie!) In one of the most psychologically horrifying things shown in the movie, one blind guy goes insane and starts choking a blind comrade to death... after switching the wire connections so that the guy getting choked gets to watch himself as he dies. Pleasant, eh? The movie is quite good, though. Absolutely insane, but very good, plus it had this whole bionic eye idea back in 1995. >:
Oh cruel fate, to be thusly boned! Ask not for whom the bone bones; it bones for thee. -Bender
Actually, the guy lives closer to Napanee, and (believe it or not) splits wood for a living.
Man, I can see, and I don't like chain saws.. buddy must be a brave mofo.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Might as well put in infrared and x-ray vision along with the bionic eyes. It'll be like every man's dream, now only if it was selective x-ray vision.........
Excellent timing, too; just moments ago, a cat tried to claw my eyes out.
Would you knock it off with the Sanrio conspiracy theories already?
What is that? Something that squirts high-pressure water around in his brain? That can't be good.
chuk
We publish lots of related news on our site. From the remarks here I can see that Slashdot members are still not familiar with it, although we make a concerted effort to collect such news, provide discussions and some feedback in this highly publicized research field with the goal to help individuals with sensorimotor disabilities. Although I was consciously searching for the related Slashdot discussion, I simply did not have time to chime in earlier (see reasons on our site). So I am inviting you to visit if you are interested in related news and some background info. Neuroprosthesis News
Or better, yet artificial life for the average slashdotter