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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
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
When will we get
Artificial Intelligence for the Stupid
Or better yet, when will we get artificial etiquette for trolls.
-Sean
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.
... 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)
...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.
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.
You better believe I'd be willing to do it if it was offered to the general public. Heck, I'd probably even be willing to sign up as a test subject in order to compare the functionality of the artificial to what a normally functioning limb/organ/etc performed like.
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.
if the batteries died in it, you would be third eye blind ;)
Give a big enough empty parking lot and a blind man can drive WITHOUT an operation!
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."
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
this device is for people who are interested in having it and that can afford it. no one is trying to force it on anyone. i know if i went blind i would pray for my vision to come back. this device may answer the prayers of some people that think the same way. For people who are happy with braile, let them be happy with braile. No one is trying to force this upon anyone.
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.
Here's the argument for...
:
Peter Parker seems to be able to use his spider sense quite well.
Jedi use their feeling of the force, a sense which most do not posses (but then again it does take years of training).
That's a lousy argument, seeing that both spiderman and Jedi ARE NOT REAL.
Again, I'll try to implant a small sense of reality into your head
Peter Parker can use is spider-sense well because he's NOT REAL
Jedi use their feeling of force ok because they are NOT REAL
Ok, then back to the argument.
I'd guess that it would take the same amount of time to adapt to this system as it would for children to develop their visual cortex, so what, 10 years? Depending upon how flexible your brain is at learning strange new things.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
A handful of scientists have learned how to interpret speech by reading frequency spectragraphs. I was wondering if the deaf could not also do the same. A PalmPilot-like device could display the scrolling spectragraph, and deaf people could learn to read it.
I agree that some people may have a hard time learning to read them, but it has been shown to be possible for at least some people. (True, they were not hearing impared, but many people are remarkable adaptable, especially if they are hightly motivated.)
Table-ized A.I.
(* 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.
Okay, I've got to ask. How do you use a computer if you're deaf and blind? Are you just 'legally blind' where you can still see, but have to have the resolution set to ENORMOUS and use a magnifying glass?
I don't mean to be rude or anything, but I've always wondered how deaf-blind people manage to live their lives. It seems like it would be a nigh-impossible struggle to communicate at all.
"If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live" -- MLK, Jr.
I've little doubt it will happen eventually. It will probably be a while before such implants are available legally as cosmetic surgery, though.
Even once artifical devices capable of functioning better than organic ones are available, they'll be nominally for people who really need them. Those who just Want the added functionality will either live without it or go to less inhibited countries and get it done in second-rate surgeries while hoping they avoid infection. Eventually someone will realize the revenue being lost that way and open it up further. And once the initial revulsion of society goes away (when previously handicapped people are wandering around with artificial parts and some sort of etiquitte is devised for asking, "Did you lose your arm, or is that on purpose?") they'll likely be as common as breast implants and facelifts.
The real question is how will society change when such things are available? If we can all (or at least the rich) get bionic eyes that let us see across a broader band of the EM spectrum, what will the world look like? Sculptures made of mildly radioactive materials that glow when you turn your eyes to the right setting, lead-based paint in advertising and just general signage to make sure you can see it if you're functioning in X-ray mode. Heck, x-ray-absorbing clothing to keep peeping toms away... It'd be a heck of a thing. And that's just eyes.
"If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live" -- MLK, Jr.
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()?
I know several blind people who use screen readers. How they manage is beyond me, but they do. In fact, as I recall, the guy who runs Wolf FM (one of the most popular shoutcast streams) is blind.
I am talking about deaf people, not blind. Sorry for not clearifying that.
(Hmmmm. Braile sprectrograph.)
Table-ized A.I.
(* Okay, as I said what you were talking about would be of no practical use for the deaf *)
Why not? The spectrograph allows them to "see" speach (and other sounds). Unlike sign language, the other side (speaker) does not have to learn it also.
I am not understanding your criticism, it appears. Please try to re-word it.
Table-ized A.I.
(* Like say social factors? *)
No. I am a geek. It takes years for me to get social clues.
Anyhow, some may like it, some may not. For example, being with the family one may not have to worry about that as much.
Table-ized A.I.