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Still More Bionic Eyes
jeno writes "An Australian-invented 'bionic eye' device is about to begin human trials. The device consists of a silicon chip inserted into the eye, which is designed to act like a retina -- receiving images captured by a pair of glasses worn by the user."
When can I get a Geordie LaForge Visor so I can tell when people are lying by their body temperature?
Buying a Dell computer is equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower.
just wait until the FBI finds out how to pick up the signals going from the glasses to the eye.
Everyone is born right-handed; only the greatest overcome it
Seems a bit useless to me. Much cooler if it projected onto the glasses so that you could get a cool 3-d image to supplement our normal vision. Who would need television or monitors then?
Also combined with the cool no-hands eye typing (see http://www.economist.com) that would be a wicked HCI system.
LOCA
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
Well, I hope that radio signal is encrypted or keyed to the individual.. what if two of these folks stand right next to each other?? What if they walk near a radio transmitter, do their eyes go haywire??
Also, how do they know that animal trials were successful??
The example picture shown in the article is barely recognizable. If I hadn't been shown the source image, I would NEVER been able to figure out what the output image was supposed to be...
Oh well, its sorta like playing Atari on a B&W TV, I guess...
Just imagine if your bionic eyes get hacked and you spend 24/7 looking a banner ad burned into your silicon retina.
Something like this, if it works, is awesome! To lose your sight, and then regain it? Just like the VISA commercial, priceless!
The use of interfacing devices to intercept neural signals from the brain is incredible! It has already been done (to an extent) aurally. Rush Limbaugh totally lost his hearing, yet benefitted from an implant (cochlear).
As to what it could be, and where it could go? Who cares? If I was on the receiving end, I sure wouldn't be paying too much attention to the options!
I would just be looking at my family and being thankful for the chance to do it!
The article fails to mention how many frames per second (if that's the appropriate term) this technology would deliver... even 10x10 pixels would be helpful if delivered at 30 - 40 FPS, but almost worse than useless if delivered at 2 FPS...
how good the pr0n is at 10x10.
Currently the technology is only able to transmit a 10 x 10 pixel image
Live web cams
The other bionic eye alluded to in the title is this article from Wired and its accompanying Slashdot post. Excellent read if you missed it.
:P
(And no, I don't need the karma, its stuck on... "yahoo, you're not 100% useless 'round here" or something...)
forma3
Speech for the Deaf, Sight for the Blind, now all we need is Sex for the Ugly and I'll be all set.
A blind man could hook those bionic eyes up to one of those Sony Glasstron sunglass-tv units playing some Spice Channel ;-)
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
From the article:
"We broadcast data into the body using radio waves," he explained. "It's like a radio station that only has a range of 25 millimetres."
This means that in order to pick up the signals, they would have to use some device that picks up signal within 25 millimetres of the glasses. This means that they have two choices
1.Go to a lot of trouble to get much less than a centimeter from the person and get a 10x10 b&w image
OR
2.Get sorta near person, and just look with own eyes and get infinite resolution, full color image that can be instantly viewed.
Think of all the legible text can be viewed in a grayscale 10x10 image. Wouldn't be much use unless the product happened to be one letter long.
Manufacturers clamor for market dominance in the bionic eye market, and come up with a hodgepodge of several dozen incompatible technologies. The Justice Department demands the ability to remotely observe what people are looking at, and pressures manufacturers to secretly include key escrow technologies in their circuitry. Copyright-holding corporations realize that the junction between the optic nerve and the CCD chip is ripe for targeting, since you can effectively close off the "analog hole" by sticking an agent in there that enforces copyrights on all visual images passing through. They lobby intensively and as a result the government steps in and mandates that within X years all vision should be digital and incorporate some approved form of copy-protection. This is hailed by the corporate press as a "victory for the consumer" because of the expected abundance of pay-per-see content, even though the early adopters get struck blind by the mandated copy protection- making their eyes worthless, although they are still prized by a small minority for their ability to boot up free operating systems.
Manufacturers continue to trip over each other in their efforts to corner the market, and come up with even more incompatible formats. Consumers who purchase the systems find that the left eye from manufacturer X (about to go out of business) and right eye from manufacturer Y (about to go out of business) both want to be in charge of what you're looking at. Getting different components to cooperate is next to impossible. When one eye breaks, you have to get them both replaced because everything is incompatible with everything else and every model is discontinued or obsoleted as soon as it comes out. People start to write scathing reviews about how the industry and Congress both need to get their act together.
Meanwhile, consumers look at this fiasco and rightly conclude that their eyes are working fine, and that there is no reason to throw them out.
Damn now I have to get a fcc license for my eyes.
Hacker Media
Maybe, in the end, giving machines human-quality visual capabiliy will be a result of using machines to return the same to impaired humans.
Of course, if you're relying on technology for your sight, you run the serious risk of going blind because of the EMP if you're beside a nuclear bomb when it goes off.
well, call me weird but the image doesnt seem all that great to me. sure, its better than nothing, but its absolutely nothing. ...
i doubt it that this 10x10 range will be any good. the idea is pretty good thought and with proper R&D it can develop to someting helpful
Ok, this is a serious question so don't mod me down.
Would it be possible, with this new eye, for colorblind people to see color? Or is this still more along the lines of gene therapy.
From the sounds of the article it seems the technology for transmitting the digital signal to the nervous system works similar to the other Australian invention - the Bionic ear.
I think patentwise, and for large companies etc. the technology will be kept under tight control for ethical reasons. I'm fairly sure the ear people are a private company owned by a university.....?
Just as long as the bionic eye doesn't make that "do-doo-do-doot" funny noise everytime you use it. That would drive me nuts.
Now What they need is a camera small enough to fit in your Iris. Get rid of that extra radio equipment since the chip can connect directly to the camera. Ad some cool night vision and Infared capabilities, maybe zoom. Then make it comparably priced as laser treatment. Only then I will get surgery for my myopia.
What's in the freakin' water down under!?
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
Wait'll the RIAA gets a-hold o' this!
Someone gives you a taped copy of Friends and you can't see it...
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
Heh, I am from down under - I have wondered what they put in the water here many times. You missed out the refugee crisis, supporting 'the war on terror' and then whinging when iraq cancels our wheat exports, the teleportation device using lasers and elle mcpherson.
Would be very unnerving. If you had vision restored through one of these artificial eyes, and the focus of the mind goes back to the vision (because the modern lifestyle is predominantly visual), would it start to affect your mind after a while like some kind of Matrix effect? Would the person start dreaming in pixels? @_@
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
They come in two classes, bright chrome shades and cheap sunglasses
Also, how do they know that animal trials were successful??
let's see (no pun intended): blind dogs kinda bump into stuff as they move about the yard. If they see squirrels in the nearby trees, you'll quickly know it by the barking and chasing. Squirrels down on the ground: I had a dog that would plot the path the squirrel would take to the nearest tree, and head right to that spot, and presto, he gets there just as the squirrel does (Then the fun begins). Has to see to do all that. With bionic eyes, same results in the dog vs squirrel tests. Now onto Cats: My cat chases another cat out of the yard. He's quite a distance away. I open the door, and call "Kitty-Cat!" and he turns to look at me and runs right up to me pronto. (Big cats, if worked with a bit, almost act like dogs) If he couldn't see, he would need further verbal guidance to reach my location. Again, with bionic eyes, same results in the calling the cat routine.
Rapidweather's Linux Screenshots.
Above everything else, the advancements science is making on vision is amazing. However poor that 10x10 image is, in time will get better. Personally, I was more intrigued by this story:t ml
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.09/vision.h
where the scientist is actually inserting probes in the brain to stimulate the nuerons that produce the image we need to see with. It sounds as though he is having better success, assuming that the patient was able to drive a car (albeit limited) after the operation. That 10x10 image doesn't leave me feeling that the patient could get in a car and drive, much less distinguish what he's looking at.
Goals are deceptive - the unaimed arrow never misses.
That wonderful, wonderful water!
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
MasterCard commercial. Ok. Mod me down. :)
--j
Just something to think about.
CODITO, ERGO SUM: I Code, therefore I am.
...and never get near her again now that you know what she really looks like.
"Hey brother Christian with your high and mighty errand / your actions speak so loud I can't hear a word you're saying"
I need this!
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
OMG, that wasn't even any good. Not funny. The premise, so factually incorrect as to be obvious even to the most ignorant, isn't even drawing flies to the bones of that horse you're whipping. I spit -- *ptew!* -- on your post!
I am waiting for the bionic ass and the bionic wang.
Unfortaintly, Sight isn't that cool if you haven't had it in a long while. Cornia transplant paitents usually end up commiting suicide...
:-P
:-P
Basically, the person has use a cain in his life for so long, they cannot function with just eyesight. There are classes to use a cain, but there isn't really a support group to help people who are trying to get off the cain.
They might not be able to judge depth perception, which is a pretty important for movement
And plus, the world isn't a great place to look at if your not use to it. Peeling paint, ugly people, dead grass, people being mean to eachother. So depression is something that is common in people who get this transplant....
of course, if you've just lost your eyesight in an accident, then getting new eyesight will be great. or at least better than learning brail
~~~
Click here, you know you wanna!
Reminds me of Babylon 5 when G'Kar has his bionic eye, especially when he can take it out and still see from it.
(Sheriden and Delenn - honeymoon night)
Londo: (something along the lines of) It almost makes you wish you could peek in and see what they are doing.
(G'Kar looks distracted)
Londo: G'Kar, where is the prosthetic eye that Dr. Franklin made for you?
(G'kar is smiling)
(Scene changes to show the eye on a table looking towards the honeymoon bed)
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
Damnable eyes from Bene Tlielax!
So using lasers and Elle Mcpherson you can teleport things?
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
Troll my arse. Sounds quite plausible. Ever heard of tempest technology? People can what's on a CRT (televisions or monitors) from blocks away.
Optobionics has been around for a while and have been implanting silicon chips on the back of the eye on human patients. The patients were blinded by retinitis pigmentosa.
The chip interfaces directly with the the remaining cells in the retina so there's no need for external glasses or receivers. Although the person with the implant cannot perceive color, the resolution is good enough to distinguish shapes. The chip itself is has an array of photodiodes with a technology similar to solar cells.
Good riddance to 'em.
So now us australians can teleport Elle Macpherson to our room, but can only see her at 10x10 resolution? that's pretty cruel...
Besides the obligatory "sharks with frickin' laser beams...?" talk about a leading question... sheesh!
I'm an individual! Just like everyone else!
I for one would like to give applause to Australian scientists and scientific organisations, in particular the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Reasearch Organisation.
Keep up the good work!
Of course, I'd be happy if I could afford an Apple Cinema HD display....
Hi,
We (IMS-CHIPS) work on something similar. But in our case, the pixels/photodiodes are included on the chip, which is implanted. No need for a separate camera. Very simple and elegant.
Have a look:
http://134.2.120.19/index_en.html
http://www.ims-chips.de/home.php3?id=d0822
Chew: I just do eyes. Just - just eyes. Just genetic design. Just eyes.
And...
Roy Batty: If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes.
as i was scrolling along, i saw a show in discovery channel about the eye.
:)
there is this new very simple device, that is still under clinical testing that allows the replacement of the retina with the use of an organic material.
no chips!
maybe someone could elaborate on this.
Live your life each day as if it was your last.
I wonder.. in the future, will bionic eyes ever go beyond giving sight to the blind? If these bionic eyes actually worked, why wouldn't the military want to get them, and modify them and further their purposes to include heat detection, range finding, night vision, etc, sort of like the eye of a Terminator?
Ah am not a crook! (\(-__-)/)
CNN is reporting on the same story, only they have the tagline that "Blind people are driving the bionic-eye market"
I've always wanted to say this where someone would believe me. (It's amazing how many people would rather bury their heads in the sand.)
It's not about the government not being interested in you or I right now, it's about the future. The more police powers the government has, the more likely those powers are to be abused. The farther technology progresses (without simultaneous attention to personal security), the easier it becomes for the government to abuse those powers.
We have proof that the US government cannot self-regulate itself sufficiently to prevent abuse of its power, no matter how temporarily it occurs.
For example, the Alien and Sedition Acts were blatant(though not flagrant) violations of personal freedoms. Take the time to read the Alien Act, and tell me the government isn't doing exactly what it made legal, right now. And notice that both laws were later struck down as unconstitutional. If you look it up, you'll find that at least one very prominent politician (a member of an opposition party) was jailed for violating the Sedition act.
For more proof, just dig deeply into the activities of the FBI during the thirties.
The government is perfectly capable of regulating itself, but only after it has made a mistake. It has no mechanism in place (aside from the common-law nature of Congress, but political parties took care of that "problem") to prevent mistakes before they occur. Hence the Alien and Sedition Acts. Hence the DMCA. Hence the Patriot Act.
I've heard it mentioned, and I'll repeat it: Laws and acts by the Legislative and Executive branches of government need to be reviewed by the other two branches. Not necessarily before they take effect, but soon after. (If they had to be reviewed before they took effect, "red tape" would become a "red swamp." McCarthy would have loved it.)
What's this Submit thingy do?
I know some people working on getting the implant talking to PLEB (http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~pleb/).
On-topic and pro-linux. I'm certain this is going to get modded up!
Finally a reason Velma can't tell the difference between a 10 foot monster and scooby.
now where did I put those glasses...
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.