Need A New Retina? Look No Further

wap writes "Restoring sight to the blind is a Bibical miracle, a sign of divine powers. Now it is being tested at the Boston Retinal Implant Project, with some very limited success, according to Technology Review. They only have fifteen electrodes implanted, but it's a start. Great quotes: 'The eye doesn't like stuff inside it, that's why it doesn't have a zipper.' Will artificial eyes and retinal replacements someday be as good as good human eyes?"

Comments

As good???

[Vo0k]

Heh, they will be 100 times better.
Extended spectrum, nightvision, antiblinder, zoom, the possiblities are unlimited!

Re:As good???

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget about smartgun aiming cross!

Re:As good???

[catwh0re]

I'm imaginging bad webcam quality eyes. Then people quoting back and forth, "oh you got crap logitech eyes, you should have bought iSight eyes"....

5 months later it'll be deemed that our eye sight can be tapped under the PATRIOT act and similar.

Re:As good???

[polyp2000]

The problem is if someone patents the software that drives they eyes. It might make it difficult to run linux on your eyeballs for example.

Nick

Re:As good???

[hcdejong]

For some values of 'better'. Sure, you can add cool features to the eye, but it'll be a while before you can improve on the original function of the eye: CCD technology has a long way to go before it even comes close to the picture quality (resolution, dynamic range, absence of noise and artefacts) of the human eye.

Re:As good???

[fatgeekuk]

Quantel paintbox, mozaic, overlays (custom wallpapers, clock display, stock market ticker (for those who care))

the ultimate (secure) display system for on the move computing...

Re:As good???

[cs02rm0]

Aren't people using retinas for developing biometric identification? I wonder what the consequences of this would be ...DoS a system with a bunch of people with the same retinal scans?

I know with the iris they can measure the amount it constantly expands and contracts by to verify it's not a contact lens or similar. I presume though when they reach the stage of replacing the whole eye they'd be able to even fake that.

Re:As good???

[Anonymous Coward]

Zeiss Ikon or nothing, baby.

Re:As good???

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the ability to play videos directly on them. Take that plus some improvements in image processing and you no longer need to "imagine" how the girl in front of you would look naked :)

Re:As good???

[Sv-Manowar]

Crosshairs? we could all go around pretending to be a universal soldier

Re:As good???

[dmayle]

5 months later it'll be deemed that our eye sight can be tapped under the PATRIOT act and similar.

printf("%s",szDeity) that should have been modded insightful. It actually makes me think of Minority Report, and how it's illegal not to have your own eyeballs. This sort of stuff will happen if we let it...

Re:As good???

[mkosmul]

I guess this sort of addons is usually considered cheating. You might get banned from all servers for that (and even worse - still get fragged by someone with a better model).

Re:As good???

[Anonymous Coward]

Take that plus some improvements in image processing and you no longer need to "imagine" how the girl in front of you would look naked

When you have seen a few, you can pretty much guess it.

Re:As good???

[Steve Franklin]

The Italian sci-fi movie "Nirvana" has some nice special effects of a guy with cheapo eye replacements. His goal in life is to get a pair of color "Zonys," which I imagine they substituted for trademark reasons. Some funny bits too--when they steal a truck it threatens to blow itself up if they don't give it back. Overall, kind of a bad version of Oshii's Avalon in Italian.

Re:As good???

[hotbutteredhtml]

Yeah. Next thing you know, we'll start seeing popups for X10 Eyes!

Re:As good???

[wowbagger]

Actually, the raw data you get from a CCD is better than the raw data you would get from the back of the human retina. The retinal is covered with blood vessels, has a big hole in it (the blind spot), had a great deal of noise (phosphene activity).

However, the nerves just after the retina, plus the optic nerve, plus the visual cortex, do a HELL of a lot of signal processing - removing the fixed imperfections like the blind spot and the blood vessels, using the dithering created by the small jittering of the eye to increase spatial resolution, averaging out the random phosphene activity.

IF you could get the same spatial resolution coupled into the retina, you could improve vision. However, that is a BIG IF - getting the millions of electrodes into the eye and coupled to the nerve cells, giving the correct voltage levels and firing patterns, without destroying the nerves by releasing metal ions or overvoltaging them, without provoking an immune response - quite a task.

Now, the question that I have is the plasticity of the brain - consider this: imagine the above difficulties are resolved. Now, instead of using a CCD array that approximates human normal vision by using RGB, what if you made an imaging element that generated RYGCBM - instead of three response curves you use six to increase the color-space resolution. Now, normally our brains learn to parse the basically RGBY data from the eye (the rods just return luminance data). Suddenly, the brain is getting a different set of signals. Is the adult brain plastic enough to learn to process this data at all? What about a child's brain?

Re:As good???

[BCoates]

a lot of that depends heavily on how much of the quality of human vision is actually in the eye, and not in the extensive post-processing done in the brain, and how well the brain adapts to off-brand peripherals.

Re:As good???

[Eric604]

Is the adult brain plastic enough to learn to process this data at all? What about a child's brain?

Yes! That's a briliant idea! When the adult brain is not plastic enough, why not use children brains as a coprocessor? The only problem is where to leave it.. Perhaps artificially expand the skull to hold an extra smaller brain?

Re:As good???

[nounderscores]

NTG's Geordi La Forge - Extended vision with his glasses on, blind after you remove his visor.

Re:As good???

[Anonymous Coward]

No such luck. The system doesn't work well: the current spread from the electrodes is so large that it's like illuninating your computer screen by shining a car headlight on it. Yeah, you see a bright spot, but it's way too big to write out letters or shapes with it, and given the way the current from the electrodes is carried by the vitreous fluid inside the eye to the rest of the nearby tissue, there's no way to focus it tighter.

Now, if the folks doing direct neural implants such as David Edell at MIT can complete their work, you can theoretically stimulate the optir ornerve directly with a resolution of maybe 10x10.

Re:As good???

[untaken_name]

Sounds good to me, I believe the children are our future. Our future part shops/cheap labor.

Re:As good???

[Anonymous Coward]

No need. Remember that color perception is not done as absolutes, since different lighting conditions would wildly change the perceived color. Rather, it's done as a matter of differences between the object and its surroundings: it's an edge detection effect, and this is documented in all sorts of visual illusions and neurological studies since the 1960's when Jerry Lettvin at MIT started putting electrodes on single neurons.

Adding another 3 colors would expand the edge handling required from 3 colors, and the resulting 2+1 = 3 differentials, to 5+4+3+2+1= 15 differentials to resolve. Forget it, it's too complex to easily manage and doesn't really buy you much additional resolution of real objects that isn't present in RGB.

Re:As good???

[Necrobruiser]

Popups. Not so effective on people who don't have functioning eyes....

Not particularly effective on people with functioning brains, either....

Re:As good???

[operagost]

Kaleidoscope eyes - without the use of mind-altering substances!

Re:As good???

[Lonewolf666]

Actually, the raw data you get from a CCD is better than the raw data you would get from the back of the human retina. The retinal is covered with blood vessels, has a big hole in it (the blind spot), had a great deal of noise (phosphene activity).

On the other hand, the human eye has pretty good resolution in the point of best vision, something like an arc minute. At the same time, it offers motion detection over a rather large arc. This allows you to notice something happening at the edge of your field of vision.
Let us assume for a moment that you want to emulate these features with a "standard" CCD that has a uniform resolution over its surface. The field of vision shall be 90 degrees horizontally. You would then need a resolution of 90*60 by (let's assume the traditional 4:3 ratio) 90*45 pixels.
That would be a 5400x4050 pixel CCD. AFAIK such CCDs do exist, but at a size that would not fit into a human eye.

Considering noise, most of today's cameras still need a flash or a floodlight to make decent pictures at night. So add some low-light amplification to your CCD, if you want to compete with the human eye ;-)

Bottom line:
Technology has to improve some more before it can give better results than a human eye from an eyeball-sized camera.

Re:As good???

[strike2867]

Is the adult brain plastic enough to learn to process this data at all? What about a child's brain?

You're forgeting that the brain is also getting the image upside down. And then it flips it for you. There was an experiment a while back where a guy wore a pair of glasses which turned everything upside down for him. I think he wore them for like 2 weeks. If I remember correctly, after a while his brain just flipped the image back for him. When he took the glasses off, his brain had to adjust again.

Re:As good???

[kunudo]

Very very interesting, you don't remember where you read about it, do you?

Re:As good???

[wowbagger]

First - the CCD is NOT in the eye - do read the article.

Second - making a CCD with the varying resolution of the retina is not a difficult task.

Third - I don't know about YOUR camera, but MY CCD camera will do quite nicely at night without a light - you simply increase the integration time.

Re:As good???

[strike2867]

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/mar97/8589845 31.Ns.r.html.

Re:As good???

[centauri]

You said it. Sendai eyes are notorious for depth-perception defects and warranty hassles, among other things. They're illegal in England, Denmark, lots of places. You can't replace nerves.

(http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~rrojas/BurningChro me .htm)

Re:As good???

[wwdsteve]

lol...you're probably right! How long before slashdot reports an X-ray vision hack?

Re:As good???

[Hobadee]

...X-Ray vision and video recording! Then you don't even have to go into the girls locker room!

Re:As good???

[Anonymous Coward]

Yikes, we'll have popups directly downloaded to our cybernetic retinas.

Re:As good???

[kunudo]

Thanks.

Re:As good???

[cfuse]

Heh, they will be 100 times better. Extended spectrum, nightvision, antiblinder, zoom, the possiblities are unlimited!

Not to mention - a kick ass monitor/tv screen.

Re:As good???

[tgrigsby]

When they get to X-Ray vision, even the sighted folks will sign up!

Well, I will at least.

Human Augmentation

[Devar]

I'd love to keep one eye, probably my 'good' eye, after testing to see which is the best, and modify the other to give retinal overlay data. You could look at an object and it would draw an overlay and data on it. Also, the ability to turn this overlay on or off! How about zoom, or freeze frame capabilites all without having your eyes look any different than they would naturally.
I know it's a long way off, but that kind of visual enhancement would be awesome. And expensive. And I want it. :)

Re:Human Augmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

In the shorter run, there's MicroVision, but they sure haven't done much in the last ten years.

Re:Human Augmentation

[vofka]

Why replace your real eye to do this if it is perfectly healthy? Take a look at EyeTap. This research, mainly by Professor Steve Mann at the University of Toronto has the potential to do everything you describe, and much more besides!

Re:Human Augmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

Just what I want, a freeze frame because of a malfunction as I'm flying down the highway at 85 MPH in heavy traffic.

Re:Human Augmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a FRICKIN' LASER BEAM coming out of your bionic eye?

FLABBBLALBBL

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah Chew, if you could only see what I've seen with your eyes

Re:FLABBBLALBBL

[Anonymous Coward]

A Blade Runner quote modded offtopic on Slashdot? You look down and you see a tortoise crawling towards you.

Re:FLABBBLALBBL

[Anonymous Coward]

A Blade Runner quote modded offtopic on Slashdot?
Unbelievable.

Re:FLABBBLALBBL

[nwbvt]

That mod is on my shit list.

You people have spent to much time watching Star Wars prequels, you have forgotten what real science fiction is like.

Re:FLABBBLALBBL

[Anonymous Coward]

> Ah Chew

Bless you!

Outstanding

[aelbric]

I really believe that given enough time, humankind will conquer disease and disability completely. We may begin to look like the cybernetic beings of science fiction to some extent, but I think there is nothing beyond the scope of human accomplishment if we could just focus on things that are really important.

Thank god for dedicated people like this.

Re:Outstanding

[TheRealStaunch]

We are Borg. Resistance is futile.

Re:Outstanding

[erroneus]

The Good news: ...even now there are some cures and/or treatments for horrible diseases!

The Bad news: ...the people who own them won't sell'm, develop'm, license'm or give'm away because there's not enough money in it.

It's a selfish and capitalist world out there still. My view on people, at least here in the U.S., is still tainted by the ridiculous and unjustifiable price gouging after the 9-11 attacks.

There just aren't enough people out there who are willing to do it for the good of mankind and there are PLENTY of people to stop the ones who will for the good of their own pockets.

Re:Outstanding

[n0rr1s]

I think there is nothing beyond the scope of human accomplishment if we could just focus on things that are really important.

Unfortunately, using this eye, nobody can focus on anything.

Re:Outstanding

[Anonymous Coward]

I really believe that given enough time, humankind will conquer disease and disability completely.

Given the history of mankind, stupidity will surely prevail. We just happen to be riding a crest of civilization (yes, even with all the problems). Another dark ages will occur within the next 500 years and for many things it will be back to square one. Remember that as our abilities for progress have increased, so have our abilities to destroy ourselves in great numbers. The magnitude of the fall of the current civilization will be much greater than that of the Roman Empire or the Mongols. If humanity is lucky, it will be proportionate to other such declines and humanity will take two steps back and rebuild over time. Although I don't think the end is near, my studying of history leaves me with the view that the challenges to humanity grow faster than the progress of humanity.

Re:Outstanding

[zepher-109]

i agree, although we would then see virii that attack the implants...like with normal computers...but those can be patched...still, it wold be a real problem if people get infected with virii at the scale of current computers on the net.

Re:Outstanding

[Azghoul]

Evidence, please.

I would expect that any true "miracle" cures would be subsidized by the government(s) of the corporations involved.

Obviously the producers need to be paid for their work. Governments can buy up whatever they want to distribute to their people.

Now, if you're talking about AIDS/Malaria/whatever medicines for African nations... someone's gotta fix the African governments first.

Re:Outstanding

[kinrowan]

Yeah, that's going to be just GREAT! We don't know what the heck to do with the population we have right now, and that's with people dying with some regularity. Once we conquer all of those pesky things that kill us off before we're 120 yrs old, what are we going to do with the surplus population then?

Sure, science can develop ways of controlling population, but we already have some, and they don't get particularly wide use. And the last thing I want is the government (any government) telling people how many kids to have.

No, for my money, a certain amount of attrition in the human race is a Good Thing (tm). I know it sounds brutal, but there you are.

Re:Outstanding

[Anonymous Coward]

And the last thing I want is the government (any government) telling people how many kids to have.

It'll be OK: once the Birthright Lottery is set up, there won't be much need for many mother hunts.

Re:Outstanding

[DanielJosphXhan]

I hope they someday find a cure for that sort of hopeless optimism.

Look at the record of history: the more we know about disease, the more diseases we discover. The more illnesses we cure, the more develop. Even things that we thought were just part of the aging process are now classified as disease.

Re:Outstanding

[Anonymous Coward]

perhaps with even more advances in technology and science, people will finally give up their beliefs in a mythological "god" and start using birth control. most families with 10 kids are the result of a horny couple (which is normal) who think that birth control is an abomination to their "god" (which is stupid). combine that with the fact that more and more men are nerds (who never procreate) and things should level out in a generation or two. but that's just in the US, places like india and china can deal with the problem themselves. and our armies will make sure they do.

How could you forget

[Anonymous Coward]

see-through-clothes eyes? People will pay a lot for those.

More info

[caitsith01]

Some info about the various types of bionic eyes currently being built can be found on Wired.

Brain implant anyone?

Where's Captain Cyborg?

[leeroybrown]

15 electrodes implanted in someone's boday and not a sign of Kevin Warwick. Perhaps we'll get some actual research with scientific basis for a change.

Re:Where's Captain Cyborg?

[JosKarith]

"What the hell is a Boday?" A Bloody 0-day?

Re:Where's Captain Cyborg?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh. If you take a look downstairs from them at the cochlear lab, you'll notice that much more effective work has been done with artificial hearing for decades now. Fortunately for that work, the bony channel of the cochlea and the layout of the auditory nerve allows the signal to be focused quite nicely on the part of the nerve that carries high or low auditory signals, which makes the system work quite well.

Re:Where's Captain Cyborg?

[operagost]

Sounds like Saddam Hussein's cousin-in-law in charge of dissenter castration or something.

High-res

[Zorilla]

They only have fifteen electrodes implanted, but it's a start...

Looks like it's nice and high-res so far. Just remember, when you're walking down the street and pick up a square-thingy, just remember how to get the freakin' duck away from you!

I must be a Luddite...

[CountBrass]

But I simply cannot imagine having any of this kind of enhancement: ever. I might consider it if say it was to restore something I'd lost completely (like my sight) but as an enhancement? No I don't think so. But then perhaps I'm a luddite: I haven't seriously considered laser eye surgery, partly because it's risky (however small) but mostly because my current eyeballs + glasses work just fine.

And as a humorous aside: how long do you think it would be before scumware companies worked out how to spam you new implants? "I ploughed into that part of school children because I was distracted by the advert for cheap viagra my retinaly implants I had just received".

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[notthepainter]

I've avoided laser eye surgery ever since a friend of mine was at a bar drawng a diagram on a napkin. You see, he was mapping out the blurry spots so he could go back in for a bit of "touch up surgery" the next day.

When he went back in, the surgeon reccomended that he wait until the software update was installed for the laser.

Now if that doesn't make you squeamish...

On the other hand, have a backup plan, like implants in case of laser failure, makes laser surgery more palatable.

And yes, I know laser surgery is safe, but these are my eyes, I don't treat them lightly.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[hcdejong]

Exactly. I'd be a lot more comfortable with those 'enhancements' safely tucked away in my glasses than in my eyeballs.
Then again, seeing the number of people willing to poke holes in themselves and stick metal objects through them purely for 'decoration', I fear I'm in the minority on this one.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[KageMonkey]

True, but these enhancements might be useful for people working as Intelligence Officers, Firefighters, etc. Although it might sound like science fiction, but in the future, criminals are going to be bio-enhanced, and the regular cop won't be able to catch these criminals unless they have implant technologies themselves.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[JosKarith]

"And yes, I know laser surgery is safe"
Unless you actually like your night vision...
I know a couple of people who've had laser eye surgery and they both say that since the surgery their night vision has been shot to hell.
But it beats the hell out of what came before - the previous system was basically a milling machine that sliced out pieces with a spinning razor disc. Niiice.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[ifwm]

Not trying to start something, but why would laser surgery have any effect on night vision? It just corrects flaws in the lenses, which should make all types of vision better. Anyone? I'm considering it, that's why I'm interested.

Of course it's possible your friends just think their night vision is worse.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[JosKarith]

AFAIK it's something to do with the frequency of the laser used. They use a uv laser to burn away pieces of the lens to re-shape it and. Your retina is composed of cones and rods - the cones are responsible for daylight vision and colour, the rods only see in black and white and are more light-sensitive so work better at night. I'm only guessing at this point but since the rods don't see colour, just intensity, then they are more likely to be affected by a powerful light source outside our normal visual frequencies.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[vofka]

The night vision problem is caused by the way the surgery is performed, and it depends on which type of surgery is carried out. The problem that is caused is a "starburst" effect around the point where the front of the eye is opened and re-sealed, or around the points where modifications have been made to the eye.

Usually these effects wear off after a couple of weeks, and some people never experience them at all, but for a minority of patients, they are left with a permanent "starburst" effect, which is worst in any high-contrast light-on-dark situation, such as driving at night.

The problem is serious enough that some governments have banned any person who has had laser eye surgery from driving at all - which is annoying for those who had their vision corrected to bring it into the range acceptable for driving in the first place!

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[nwbvt]

" I might consider it if say it was to restore something I'd lost completely (like my sight)"

Well thats sort of what they are for.
Thats like me saying I cannot imagine using crutches, ever, though I might consider them if I had broken my leg.

Leave it to /. to make research restoring sight to the blind an issue primarily about turning human beings into a race of cyborgs.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[Anonymous Coward]

It just corrects flaws in the lenses, which should make all types of vision better. Anyone? I'm considering it, that's why I'm interested.


It doesn't "correct flaws in the lenses". It has no effect on the eye's anatomical part called a"lens". Typical near/far sightedness isn't caused by any geometric flaws, but rather by the eye's inability to refocus the "baseline" position of the lens due to skeletal changes forcing geometry changes of the eyeball. Astigmatism is due to corneal flaw in shape but the cornea is still perfect in terms of surface. Contrary to some myths, it is not due to muscle problems, it's that the lens isn't anywhere it needs to be where the muscles can do some good. Laser surgery cuts away at the cornea to change the refractivity of it so that the lens' accomodation range is back in the active area for the optical system consisting of cornea, lens, retina (the same way contact lenses and glasses work).

These cuts cause flaws. In addition, the contrast and reflectivity of the cornea is adversely affected. It is still much better than the older techniques. What some people forget is that laser surgery is still surgery. It is still butchery, its just that the laser is relatively more precise and allows smaller scale cuts than a knife.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[anno1a]

I quake in my pants thinking of "intelligent houses" already... I find the whole idea of having my house connected to the internet fucking scary, so no way in hell I'd ever consider getting my eyes online. Just consider what will happen if you get hacked!

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[mailtomomo]

time to finish my EM gun.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[Anonymous Coward]

What?

The article is about kinda-sorta restoring vision to nearly blind people, and the parent was just talking about how he wouldn't go for it unless he was completly blind. Actually improving on healthy human vision with implants probably isn't even being considered, and considering the difference between developing implants where "The eye doesn't like stuff inside it," and making better external devices that can be bigger, heavier, and easier to use, there probably isn't much of a point.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[Anonymous Coward]

It just corrects flaws in the lenses

No. It introduces new flaws to the lenses, with the hope being that the new flaws aren't as bad as the old ones. Sometimes the new flaws turn out to have side-effects.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[primus_sucks]

my current eyeballs + glasses work just fine.

You're already enhancing yourself then! Seriously though, I think in 200 years when people are born, you will automatically get enhanced vision, extra memory/processors, maybe a super strong titanium exo-skeleton. Living without these things 200 years from now would be like trying to live now without electricity.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, it's very simple. First of all, the surgery works on the cornea, not the lens.
Second of all, the area that is corrected is the same size as the pupil, DURING THE DAY. When your pupil dilates at night, your cornea is now being used in both the 'corrected' and 'uncorrected' areas.
Just goes to show that even university-educated people don't think of everything.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[CountBrass]

Actually you know: I doubt that will be true.

I think what will work against it is the same repulsion people feel for the disabled, the deformed and the just plain different. (All of which are there to ensure you mate with a partner whose likely to give you strong, healthy and succesful offspring.)

I think the same will apply to implants and a mere 200 years won't be enough to overturn a several million years of evolution: we've evolved to be turned off by freaks.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[Gumph]

You are right we will have these enhancements but they will not be Cyber in nature they will be bio!!!
why muck about with all that tedious implant nonsense when genetic alteration can do it for you without the scars or beeping when you go through a metal detector?? (of course metal detectors themsleves will be outmoded by then) but no analogy is perfect.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[operagost]

You're almost right - the problem is most noticeable at night because the iris opens to let in more light, and the flaw in the retina which was once blocked by the iris is now exposed. Certain eye shapes are more or less susceptible to this effect.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[Anonymous Coward]

And that you are a fucking genius....

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[Thieron]

Technology like this, esp at the early stage, would only be for the blind. However, as the technology becomes mature, it certainly could offer people the option for enhancement.

Laser surgery has been around a little while now and I'm sure you'd get many many people in /. telling of great success with it.

Personally, I was considering it, but a Dr. made we rethink it, because noone with the surgery has grown old and they don't know how it'll necessarily interact with cataracts, and other eye problems you get.

I actually stopped wearing contacts a few years ago because I kept getting infections and other issues. I find that I'm good with just glasses. However, I'm also really blind without them. So, like I did not too long ago, if I drop the glasses while driving, I'm going to have a problem. I've been rethinking the laser surgery option a bit, because I can't see without the glasses. It is not really an option for me to function all day if they break, or something.

I think if I was a little nearsighted and could get by, I'd wait. However, I'm thinking about it again with my primary concern being the cost, since I don't have the money just lying around and this is not something I'd do cheap.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[Firethorn]

I've read that it's caused because it doesn't necessarily correct all of the light entering your eye. In nighttime, your pupils expand, and you start receiving more uncorrected light from the edges. Imagine having a smaller lens providing the correction for a larger lens.

Newer lasers can correct a larger radius, but of course this requires removing more material, so cornea thickness becomes a larger concern.

I was rejected for laser surgery because of the potential it'd mess up my night vision.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[cellocgw]

You must be joking: people turned off by implants? Several thousand rich plastic surgeons (and rich strip club owners) would disagree.
So it matters a lot just what implant and why.
FWIW, I'm one of many who finds a stylish pair of eyeglasses can greatly enhance the sexual attractiveness of the wearer. Not strictly an implant, but there you go.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[Erik Hollensbe]

When I go to bed, I take the glasses off.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[Afrosheen]

So what if you get hacked, you've seen the goatse man plenty of times by now. Skript kiddies are so lacking in creativity you'd be staring at that or tubgirl for a few seconds until you rebooted.

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[Country_hacker]

I DO live without electricity, you insensitive clod!!!

(Posting this via Carrier Pigeon Protocol, of course. ;-)

Re:I must be a Luddite...

[Anonymous Coward]

sure, until you hear they can see through clothes

SciFi becoming reality

[Pascho]

Maybe this is how the next "Riddick" will have his eyes. Full abilities. Then there wouldn't be an excuse to wear the cool goggles/glasses all the time. Scratch that idea.

Re:SciFi becoming reality

[Natestradamus]

Sure there would. Eye protection... given how much these enhanced eyeballs would cost, you really have to protect that investment!

Gives a whole new meaning to...

[mrjb]

"I can't see a thing without my glasses!"

Minority Report and the Future

[KageMonkey]

Will artificial eyes and retinal replacements someday be as good as good human eyes?

Reminds me of the scene where Tom Cruise went to get his eyes replaced in the Minority Report. Nevertheless, the question that "will be as good as someday?" is somewhat pointless, because we all know that as technology advances, will ALWAYS be as good as in the future. Unless we blow ourselves up, I am certain that we will have eye implants that gives humans super-vision, as well as being able to see-through walls, amongst other goodies. The better quesion is, how long will it take for technology to get there.

Re:Minority Report and the Future

[KageMonkey]

Sorry, forgot that the arrows were used as tags. This time, I will use the Preview button. Here is the corrected version:

Reminds me of the scene where Tom Cruise went to get his eyes replaced in the Minority Report. Nevertheless, the question that "will [something] be as good as [something else] someday?" is somewhat pointless, because we all know that as technology advances, [something] will ALWAYS be as good as [the original human organ] in the future. Unless we blow ourselves up, I am certain that we will have eye implants that gives humans super-vision, as well as being able to see-through walls, amongst other goodies. The better quesion is, how long will it take for technology to get there.

Re:Minority Report and the Future

[Anonymous Coward]

The better quesion is, how long will it take for technology to get there.

nVidia's EyeForce FX can process over 30 terapixels of data per cycle! Experience real-to-live cineFX vision with your EyeForce implant. Featuring 12 blood vessel pipelines, and fully directX 10 compliant. nVidia: the way it's meant to be seen.

Re:Minority Report and the Future

[Anonymous Coward]

"will [something] be as good as [something else] someday?" is somewhat pointless. The better quesion is, how long will it take for technology to get there. There is one exception to this rule. [Windows and IE] will never be as good as [everything else].

Re:Minority Report and the Future

[Anonymous Coward]

even better would be "have we annihilated ourselves before that?"

You mean DIGITAL zoom

[caitsith01]

999X DIGITAL ZOOM! Actually creates data out of nothing WHILE YOU ARE ZOOMING! Who needs those fancy optics and lenses and whotnot?! DIGITAL is part of the WORLD OF TOMORROW!

Seriously, though, without an extra lens how could it be anything but 'digital zoom' (i.e. 'magnification')?

On the other hand, most people nowadays appear to be dumb enough to buy anything so long as it is digital or contains the prefix i- or e-, so maybe we can just market these as "eYes : now with DIGITAL zoom."

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[LostCluster]

There seems to be a segment of the marketplace that loves the word "digital" thinking it must mean "better technology" which is true most of the time, but there are some things that are just meant to be done in analog sound amplification and image magnification being two of the biggest examples.

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[dmayle]

without an extra lens how could it be anything but 'digital zoom'

Easy, a higher resolution sensor. I'f you're looking at 1280x960 picture at 640x480 (50%), and you suddenly DIGITAL ZOOM to 1280x960, you didn't need a lense, and you weren't manufacturing new information. No one is saying that this will be ready next year, but in 50 year's time, it will definitely be possible.

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[hcdejong]

But would the brain be able to make sense of the images you create that way? Part of the nerve bundle would go dark as you zoom in, would the brain be able to fill in the blanks?

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[Eric604]

That is true for now. It's just a matter of time until resolution of CCDs are 100 fold of what they are now without reducing quality per pixel.

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[Janek Kozicki]

as a remainder - we had eye transplant, which was not exactly eye, but the cornea was transplanted.

nonetheless whole discussion there is actually interesting, and the subject is related.

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[Eric604]

Assume the brain alwasy recieves 640x480. When zooming out to 1280x960, the image will be scaled down to 640x480 before sending it to the brain (removing pixels instead of making them up by interpolation).

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[Anonymous Coward]

There seems to be a segment of the marketplace that loves the word "digital" thinking it must mean "better technology" which is true most of the time, but there are some things that are just meant to be done in analog sound amplification and image magnification being two of the biggest examples.

Ugh, you simply replace on type of ignorance with another type of ignorance.

There is nothing about any process that is meant for "analog". The world is in fact inherently digital. For example, there is a quantization constraint on transistor and tube amplifiers defined by the noise floor and the finiteness of photons and energy quanta. There is a limit on photographic paper due to the molecules of the film and paper. There is a sound theory behind all digital processes called information theory. With sufficient sampling and quantization, all analog processes can be done digitally with no information loss.

Sampling recovers ALL spectral information within a known finite amount (f/2). Quantization is "lossy", but if the SNR of your digitization is larger than the limit of your source (and all physical processes in the universe have a finite SNR) then there is effectively no loss at all.

You need to hit the books lest you continue to sound like an idiot. If you're a lifer of rec.audio.pro, then my apologies, you can't be helped.

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe we can just market these as "eYes : now with DIGITAL zoom."

Or eEyes, but maybe Old McDonald has that Trademarked.

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[caitsith01]

So in other words you would cripple the device in its basic mode, then 'enhance' the image by un-crippling it to make full use of its resolution?

Not really a zoom in my book.

By the way, don't tell digital camera companies or they'll start with a default image size of 30x40 pixels and a 100x 'optical sensor' zoom.

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[ovatto]

I wouldn't call that crippling. If the device had very high sensor resolution (~tens of thousand pixels in both dimensions) and since your brain can only evaluate so much pixel information this could actually be a reasonable approach.

I mean look at modern display hardware. You can't really distinguish solitary pixels that well anymore (although this is limited by your personal wetware but anyway.. you get the point).

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[Vo0k]

Simply. High density CCD (say, 100 gigapixel?). Or variable density CCD. In zoom 1x you use only 1 in 100 of CCD sensors (the rest still can be used as redundant backup). With 100x zoom you use all of them but only from 1/100 the original area.

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[hplasm]

That's why all products prefixed 'Turbo' can be had for next to nothing these days....

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[ejdmoo]

This would also be necessary for image stabilzation.

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[lcsjk]

I think this thread is "The blind leading the blind".

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[Anonymous Coward]

"eYes : now with DIGITAL zoom."

Your product will never take off. But mine will. Watch in wonder as your pathetic eYes product becomes my eYes.Net success!

"eYes.Net : now with DIGITAL iZoom"

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[syukton]

"Seriously, though, without an extra lens how could it be anything but 'digital zoom' (i.e. 'magnification')?"

Magnification is just the divergence of light so that it covers a larger surface area. Technology may at some point in the near future provide a way to bend/diverge light without lenses.

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[The_K4]

Yes there IS a "digital" base for all things (and your examples were good ones) HOWEVER there unless the digital technology you are using sufficiently advanced then the analog process might produce better results. For example for a long time digital cameras and printeres were not able to produce pictures as good as film/photo paper becasue the digital technology was unable to get the resolution as high. So for so applications analog is currently still better then digital (however that set is shrinking).

Remember that the f/2 is the minimum sampling rate to be able to caputer a signal, in most cases that will NOT provide all the spectral info needed. Think of a sign wave, if you hit it just right you would see a flat line with f/2 sampling. Often for GOOD reproduction you need to sample more then 2x withing the period of the wave, often times 10x is much better.

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[phearlez]

What's all this digital talk? They making fake fingers in addition to retinas?

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to the engineers of the TacT Millenium...

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[StalinsNotDead]

"eYes : now with DIGITAL zoom."

So would the mac version be "iEyes"?

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[Carnildo]

No, you build in a mismatch between the sensor resolution and the display resolution. Let's say the best electrode grid you can fit into an eyeball is 1 megapixel. If you've got a 5 megapixel camera feeding that grid, you've got the potential for digital zoom.

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[Afrosheen]

Actually you can handle all this with sophisticated software. You'd fractalize the image then use transform algorithms to zoom in and out. Not sure how you'd implement the interface for it (thought sensors or whatever, maybe squinting triggers it) but it'd be nice to have.

Personally I'd go for a subdermal temple button in the right side of my head, in that soft spot just next to the eye. Have it automatically kill the zoom feature when your eye is closed as well. You probably don't want to see hi-res images of your blood veins in your eyelid when you blink on a sunny day.

Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom

[Afrosheen]

Right, this is the whole concept of digital zoom, because in order for digital zoom to look right, you downsample an image of higher resolution than your output source. A 72dpi image on screen at 100% magnification will look worse when printed at 300dpi. Working with a 300dpi image on screen forces you to zoom out to see the whole image, and when you print, it matches. Hence your 5mp camera >> 1mp grid analogy is valid.

The question still remains: just how many megapixels can a human eye see? Now what about an eagle eye? An albatross eye?

I don't see what the big deal is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, I don't. =)

When will they learn?

[Yeechang Lee]

When will scientists learn that it's foolish to perform surgery on the eye?

Bart: [rings bell] Flanders is a soft touch. He'll give us the
money for sure.
[Ned answers the door. He's wearing dark glasses and
carrying a cane]
Ned: Jesus? Is that you?
Ralph: Mr. Flanders, you're blinded-ded!
Ned: Oh, yeah. I never should have had that trendy laser
surgery. It was great at first but, you know, at the ten-
year mark your eyes fall out.

Re:When will they learn?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lisa: Dad, you shouldn't wear glasses that weren't prescribed for you.
Homer: Lisa, just because you're ten feet tall doesn't mean you can tell me what to do.

Sony NightShot + Artificial Eye

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see it now... "Holy shades of X-Ray Vision, Batman!"

Can I get these in "Beer Goggles" mode?

[HBI]

Being able to look at ugly chicks as if they were beautiful would be a gift beyond price.

Re:Can I get these in "Beer Goggles" mode?

[Anonymous Coward]

Being able to look at ugly chicks as if they were beautiful would be a gift beyond price.

Drinking four large glasses of beer in an hour works for me.

Re:Can I get these in "Beer Goggles" mode?

[stemcell]

Oh come on, this is /. - being able to look at inflatable chicks as it they were beautiful would be a start......

Re:Can I get these in "Beer Goggles" mode?

[terrencefw]

What? You want the beer goggles without the beer? What's wrong with you!

Re:Can I get these in "Beer Goggles" mode?

[the real darkskye]

Indeed, I, for one, would much prefer the anti-beer goggles mod so that no matter how drunk I am, people still look the same, in focus and haven't spontaniously developed a clone.

Now if only I could get a hearing aid which stopped boring people from being interesting while drunk too...

Re:Can I get these in "Beer Goggles" mode?

[kid-noodle]

Ahhh. Like so many other things, alcohol doesn't actually make you think they're hot.. It just makes you not care anymore. Much like say.. falling down the stairs: "Argh! I've broken my back! Ah well. Back to the bar."

Re:Can I get these in "Beer Goggles" mode?

[Anonymous Coward]

Beauty is only a light switch away.

Promising

[zxflash]

It's always nice to see promining new technologies on the horizon that can drastically imporove peoples lives...

I just have one question though will you choose Visdose NT or Eyeballix as your primary OS

Re:Promising

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither. iSight will be more than just a camera :)

15% of the worlds blind

[Anonymous Coward]

could be cured for the cost of 1 Nuclear submarine, but as we are not serious about curing blindness we would rather have multiple subs and lots of blind people

http://www.mercyships.org

Re:15% of the worlds blind

[JaredOfEuropa]

could be cured for the cost of 1 Nuclear submarine, but as we are not serious about curing blindness we would rather have multiple subs and lots of blind people

Similarly, we could cure hunger and disease for the price of 3 nuclear subs. But next year we'd have to pay even more because all our free food aid has bankrupted the few remaining farmers in Africa (this does actually happen by the way). Then after a few years, when we say 'enough is enough' and ask them to grow their own damn food for a change, they come to our countries instead and take ours. We will not be able to stop them because we have swapped all our submarines for food.

I'm kidding of course. My point is that the defense of our citizens has a higher priority than curing the world's blind, and that one submarine is deemed necessary for the defense.

Re:15% of the worlds blind

[murraythegreat]

I would have thought you'd need more than 1 nuclear sub to kill all the blind people

Re:15% of the worlds blind

[Anonymous Coward]

Or we could just use the nuclear sub to nuke the blind. No more blind people and we still have a nuclear sub.

Know why blind people don't skydive?
It scares the hell out of their dogs.

Re:15% of the worlds blind

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that depends on the type of sub Los Angeles or Ohio class? If you could gather all the blind people in one place, I think a couple MIRV's could "cure" 15% of the worlds blind people.

Re:15% of the worlds blind

[Ryan Amos]

We don't need a military. We have nukes. Invade us and we vaporize you. Simple as that. :)

Re:15% of the worlds blind

[Anonymous Coward]

It takes a lot more than just money to "cure" things. The biggest factor is cultural and that must change from within, if a change needs to be made. But remember, what looks like a big problem to you might be a small one in another culture.

Actually, the biggest problem is arrogant Westerners who want to go and impose their culture on others. Stay out of other countries' business! Yes, a minority in other countries want to use your help and "westernize" their country, but they're a minority, change must come from within.

Re:15% of the worlds blind

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is politically we can't use nukes :(
Too many protesters inside and outside the US will say "oh you vaporized the poor innocent people." I have always hated limited war, you either go all out or not at all. I don't like those who preach about "innocents;" just because somebody isn't shooting at you doesn't mean they aren't helping shelter, hide, feed, supply, and boost the morale of those that are.

Re:15% of the worlds blind

[pavon]

Ironic that you should link to a charity in a post which infers that government spending is the solution to our problems, because everytime I hear someone saying that we could improve the world if only everyone in the country gave so much more in taxes, I wonder "Then why aren't you"? If progressives were to give just a small portion of thier income to charity they could achieve all the things that they want the government to do.

And don't tell me you don't have the money. Growing up in a family of seven, living off of less than $70k in the 90's, my parents always gave at least 10% to charity. We weren't poor but I'm sure most slashdotters are much better off than we were. From the very first allowence I recieved, I have given at least 10% of my income to charity. When I was only getting $10/month as a high schooler in 1997, when I was living off ramen in college, I still gave. Because my parents taught me that no matter how bad off you are, there is someone who needs the money more than you. A church here has managed to put on a huge outreach event once a year, in addition to their normal day to day support. This is only a medium size church, and it is one of the less wealth churches in the city, and yet it manages to achieve things that the huge mega churches wouldn't dream of doing.

I am not saying any of this to brag, but to point out that you can make a difference, even if you aren't rich. So to all progressive that want to improve people's lives, before you impose your morals on the entire country, before you create another inept government beurocracy - ask yourself what you are doing to improve the world yourself. I know some of you are already, but I know just as many who are not. Worse, some are even being a drain on society - of thier own choice, not because of the evils of society, as much as they would like to think otherwise. There are some things that are systematic problems and need a change of policy to improve the dynamics of our economic system. But social programs are do not fall into this catagory, and if you are not giving money to these programs yourself already, then you have no right to force your fellow countrymen to do so instead.

Re:15% of the worlds blind

[Anonymous Coward]

So the Viet-cong would have done well, had they had the ability, to blow up Kent State?

Re:15% of the worlds blind

[tnak]

nice strawman fallacy.

Re:15% of the worlds blind

[Anonymous Coward]

thats why we should have nuked the desolate out of the way area of afganistan 2 days after 9/11

war on terror is over.
we can make sure we dont kill a lot of people by doing it out in the desolate areas.

and the lives lost would have beeen a whole lot less.

turning sand into glass and vaporizing some mountians will have a certain effect on the attitude towards the US.

fear or respect, in the end it doesnt matter.

Re:15% of the worlds blind

[ryanmfw]

Essentially, your post is a whole lot of well meaning nothing. You have many valid points, but none of them actually address why government funded social programs are wrong, except that the people who create these social programs somehow don't donate enough and if they don't the government shouldn't either. So? Does that mean that the actual program is somehow wrong? Is using tax dollars to fund the programs wrong because maybe some taxpayers would disagree with the program? If that's the case, I think my money shouldn't go to that nuclear submarine. I think that's a waste of my tax dollars as I disagree with their necessity.

While I'm all for not spending taxpayer dollars on inefficient or ineffective programs, be they social, economic, or military programs, I'm absolutely fine if their results justify the cost. But, just because someone might disagree with a program is no reason to not support it.

Note, I do agree that people should provide a lot more donations. :-) And, I think it's really cool that you donate so much, even from your allowance. Double :-)

Steve Austin...a man barely alive...

[rirugrat]

"We can rebuild him...we have the technology..."

Legal issues with artificial eyes...

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with having a camera for an eye is that if they got good, they most certainly would cause enromous legal issues. You could conceivably record your own sight, which would run afoul of various copyright, privacy, and wire-tap laws in the US and abroad. More so if you broadcast them, or if security/access control was in place.

Re:Legal issues with artificial eyes...

[mrjb]

Good point, I don't think that should've been modded down. Those glasses transfer the image to the artificial retina via wireless. Of course the signal need not be very strong, but could possibly be picked up by others.

Re:Legal issues with artificial eyes...

[famebait]

Only if you actually did record it.

Re:Legal issues with artificial eyes...

[hcdejong]

Will this be any more of an issue than today's hearing aids? After all, they could be used to record sounds...

Re:Legal issues with artificial eyes...

[Nakkel]

Or the signal could be overrun with something else, like goatse and closing your eyes or turning away wouldnt help.

*shivers*

Re:Legal issues with artificial eyes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention X-Ray "nightvision" capable eyes!

Re:Legal issues with artificial eyes...

[theparanoidcynic]

MPAA: "Congratulations on your restored sight. Now, I must inform you that you're under arrest for bringing not one, but two cameras into a movie theater. That's a felony son."
That'll go over REALLY well in the court of public opinion . . . . .

Re:Legal issues with artificial eyes...

[nusratt]

I'm surprised that no one has raised the *legal* issue of external interference (intentional or otherwise) from other devices.

Re:Legal issues with artificial eyes...

[nwbvt]

I know some places have started banning camera phones in areas like locker rooms because of privacy, this seems to be an even bigger potential problem.

Get infravision, Win the JREF Prize...

[NarrMaster]

If someone had the ability to see in the infrared spectrum, they could possibly decieve the James Randi Educational Foundation. Contact James Randi, claim you can see "auras", set up the test to your advantage and viola! A cool $1,000,000! Put another way:

1. Get infravision.
2. Contact James Randi.
3. Profit!

Re:Get infravision, Win the JREF Prize...

[pjt33]

set up the test to your advantage and viola!

I knew I should have taken music lessons in school.

Divine powers?

[zonix]

Restoring sight to the blind is a Bibical miracle, a sign of divine powers.

Well, as The Doctor said: "Divine intervention is ... unlikely". :-)

z

Missing Zoom function

[waynemcdougall]

Lister: Any problems?
Kryten: Well, just one or two. In fact I've compiled a little list if you'll indulge me. Now then, uh, my optical system doesn't appear to have a zoom function.
Lister: No, human eyes don't have a zoom.
Kryten: Well then, how do you bring a small object into sharp focus?
Lister: Well, you just move your head closer to the object.
Kryten: I see. Move your head ... closer, hmm, to the object. All right, okay. Well, what about other optical effects, like split screen, slow motion, Quantel(tm)?
Lister: No. We don't have them.
Kryten: You don't have them -- just the zoom? Hmm. Well, no, that's fine, that's great, no, no, that's really great, that's great.

Re:Missing Zoom function

[operagost]

Lister: No, human eyes don't have a zoom.
Kryten: Well then, how do you bring a small object into sharp focus?

Well, that would actually require a MACRO lens.

operagost: stomping on perfectly good comedy since 1973

Re:anyone here a possible retina donor?

[JosKarith]

Almost everyone's a potential retina donor - you just have to remember to fight down the urge to go for the headshot...

About time too!

[manavendra]

This is very good news! My brother had been hurt in an accident has a child and has limited vision in one eye. The retina of his eye was damaged and several thousand dollars and hundreds of trips to clinics and hospitals later, we have been where we started!

This is early days yet, I know, but it offers some hope.

Screw Artificial Eyes

[Anonymous Coward]

I want chainsaw hands!

Re:Screw Artificial Eyes

[mangu]

RTFA, those eyes aren't screwed, they are glued.

Re:Screw Artificial Eyes

[LGagnon]

Hands? As in two of them? But how will you carry your boomstick?

Conspiracy!

[Lostie]

I wouldn't be surprised if this company is also responsible for running shock sites such as goat.cx - they produce severe retinal scarring, perfect for business!

Re:Conspiracy!

[NarrMaster]

No, the scarring is much deeper than that. I had to clean my temporal lobe with a screwdriver after tubgirl. (shudders)

Example of overlay data

[zonix]

1) Serve the public trust
2) Protect the innocent
3) Uphold the law
4) Secret

z

Re:Example of overlay data

[Anonymous Coward]

4) Classified

Re:Example of overlay data

[shiftless]

...

5) Profit

Re:Example of overlay data

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Yes
2) No
3) Please come back later
4) Is the rent due?
5) Fuck you
6) Fuck you, asshole

Startrek

[Celt]

Well It did'ent happen in ST till the 24th Century,
It did'ent happen to Geordi LaForge till one of the films :)

it already exists

[Errtu76]

It's called respect, and you don't need any glasses for that.

Re:it already exists

[ifwm]

Nope. I respect plenty of ugly chicks. They're still ugly though.

Of course, even better...

[Yaa 101]

Like it or not we will become BORGS when the majority of limbs and interfaces will be better than our given by nature ones.

And the Law of Accelerating will make shure it comes sooner than we all aticipate it.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html? pr intable=1

Re:Of course, even better...

[parksie]

Disclaimer: Yes, I know it's all fiction.

<speculation>
And this is a bad thing? In the ST episodes, most of those separated from the Collective were pretty unhappy about it. I'd almost enjoy it if I never had to worry about whether anyone was lying to me or not :)
</speculation>

stupid title!

[Anonymous Coward]

Need A New Retina? Look No Further

if you need a new retina, you can't look any further!

Please wont somebody think of the blind diabetics?

[Colourspace]

This is great news for me, I recently had an eye scan which showed the first signs of retinal damage after years of being diabetic... They reckon I have about ten years lefy so these guys need to get it up to at least JPEG resolution by then so I can still jack into my laptop and get my pr0n.. ;)

Re:Please wont somebody think of the blind diabeti

[Colourspace]

P.S. Please do NOT mark the above 'Insightful'

The 24th Century, when Kunta Kinte is blind

[Anonymous Coward]

and men are still bald.

Re:The 24th Century, when Kunta Kinte is blind

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought his name was Toby....

Finally something for the...

[akeyes]

average geek. Now when we burn ours out by staring at bright monitors in dark rooms for countless days on end, we have a replacement.

buying iSight eyes

[No Such Agency]

I believe that the top-quality ones are Zeiss-Ikon.
/cyberpunk nerd

Only for people who could see at some time

[Jeff Kelly]

Just some clarification.

These devices won't restore eyesight to people who were born blind. Only those who, at one time in their life, actually could see will profit from such technical replacements.

When you are born you are nearly blind. It takes four to six years for the visual cortex to develop fully. After the age of six this development stops and thats the end of it.

If you are born blind then the cortex will not be trained and no magic eye surgery will restore your vision, because after the age of six the visual cortex will no longer adapt to the new situation.

Even if your eyes are restored to 20/20 vision you will not see a thing because your vision center doesn't know how to interpret the pictures. So these kinds of surgery will only help people which went blind and not those who were born blind. (Still cool stuff)

BTW. It is the same with deafness.

Re:Only for people who could see at some time

[gordo3000]

but then why not take that to the next level, if this technology gets far enough along, lets say by 2020, then if a child is born blind and we have good ways of testing it, we could immediately implant the eyes and train the visual cortex from as early as possible so the child gains at least some sight(of course, I`m assuming you can`t do this surgery on a new born but probably can before the age of 6).

Anyways, if they can do heart surgery on newborns, I think they could quickly learn to pull this off and it would be an even greater gift by helping to eliminate many forms of blindness.

Re:Only for people who could see at some time

[jstave]

I read an article (I believe it was in Science News) indicating that blind-from-birth people actually used their visual cortex to process sounds. Basically we use it to build up our model of the world around us.

I'm not saying it could be retrained to process visual information after a lifetime of other use, I just thought its cool how the brain can effectively rewire itself. Kinda like detaching the speakers from your computer and having the sound card automatically start processing graphics (or something)

Re:Only for people who could see at some time

[xenicson]

Actually, it depends on where the blindness occurs... there are several different "kinds" of blindness... problems with the visual cortex, problems with the optic nerve, and problems with the actual eye structure (though I'm sure there are many more)... it is entirely possible for someone to be born with a working visual cortex and optic nerve, but broken eyes that this would be able to help.
BTW, Why is this just making news here, now? I saw a spot on CNN probably a year ago or more about a guy that was blind, but had stuff implanted into his brain and a little camera to allow him to see... It's still really cool, but it isn't really new.

Re:Only for people who could see at some time

[nounderscores]

That's the exact thing that people are considering doing with cochlear implants. Doctor checks if the baby has a cochlear and no ear canal for instance, implants the baby and the baby learns to hear and talk. Of course, the baby will never be a "native" sign language speaker, but the baby will be able to avoid backing trucks.

Re:Only for people who could see at some time

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite: the historical provision of sight to those blind from birth, and hearing to those deaf from birth, has some verified cases. There is *some* effectiveness at least for hearing. But the provision of things like cochlear implants for children before they learn language is a politically sensitive subject: the deaf community doesn't like to hear that they're potentially damaging a child's ability to ever benefit from a cochlear implant by refusing to implant the child and leaving them the choice when they are an adult, and they don't appreciate being told that deafness is a handicap to be avoided rather than a culture to embrace.

So it gets pretty nasty even talking about it with deaf parents of newly born deaf kids. I don't think the bliend are anywhere near as touchy about it.

Re:Only for people who could see at some time

[parksie]

It's well known that people born blind have better hearing, is it possible for the visual cortex to be co-opted for the purposes of hearing? As in, they "see" sounds visually?

Re:Only for people who could see at some time

[Anonymous Coward]

It takes four to six years for the visual cortex to develop fully. After the age of six this development stops and thats the end of it.

And that is why we need more stem cell research.

Re:Only for people who could see at some time

[Anonymous Coward]

These devices won't restore eyesight to people who were born blind.

You can't *restore* something that they never had.

Re:Only for people who could see at some time

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the different viewpoints are pretty easy to explain: the blind don't have their own language, and for the most part not much of their own culture, since they interact with mainstream humans in an essentially normal way. The deaf have their own language (completely unlike English in the US) and historically have been unable to communicate well with the mainstream population (since oralism never worked). So they are a distinct social group to a greater extent than the blind.

Re:Only for people who could see at some time

[yuckysocks]

Uh... How do you know? If they're just developing this technology, then no one has ever benefitted from it before and you can't be sure whether or not the brain can cope. We all know about its extensive "rewiring" abilities (Phineas Gage) so who knows if when faced with new input, whether it will be able to figure out what to do with it given some time.

Also, isn't it mostly hormones that spur the quick growth and organization of a childs brain? Even if the brain can't figure out the vision thing on it's own, could these early-childhood conditions just be replicated with drugs once a new retina is received?

Re:Only for people who could see at some time

[misterpies]

There's actually an article (subscription) on this in this week's edition of Nature. It's about a guy who was blind from birth but - at the age of 52 - received a corneal graft that enabled him to see for the first time.

The psychologists were dumbfounded to discover that he could read the time on clocks and even the titles of books straight away, without any learning. It turned out that he had a "blind" watch (a clock without a cover over the face, so he could tell the time from feeling the positions of the fingers), and at school he'd been taught to recognise capital letters by their shape. Somehow this shape information was transferred from touch into sight ("cross-modal transfer").

However, when it came to objects that were out of his tactile knowledge, he was unable to respond to them properly - e.g. he had no way of estimating the distance of any object further away than the length of his arm, and pictures and photographs were just meaningless blobs of colour.

Re:Only for people who could see at some time

[Firethorn]

From what I've heard, they don't need to "speak" sign language, as they often learn to hear and talk to pretty much normal levels.

Now as far as knowing sign language goes, if they have a deaf parent or sibling, they'll probably learn.

Re:Only for people who could see at some time

[gmhowell]

You are correct. This is why my deaf-blind wife, after reading for too long complains about 'tired eyes'. It's not the eyes that are tired, it's the visual cortex.

Of course, she skews things a bit, as she was born with both vision and hearing.

Re:Only for people who could see at some time

[Jeff Kelly]

"Uh... How do you know? If they're just developing this technology, then no one has ever benefitted from it before and you can't be sure whether or not the brain can cope."

I know because there are other conditions which, to some extend, lead to the same phenomenon. If you are suffering from strabismus or nystagmus since birth the same could happen to you. If you suffer from strabismus then you get diplopic images since right and left eye are not parallel.

The brain cannot cope with this kind of double vision because it cannot combine the two images (from the left and right eye) to form a threedimensional image.

So the brain ignores the image from the weaker of the two eyes and the part of the visual cortex, which processes the images from this eye will no longer be used.

This leads to bad vision which cannot be corrected with glasses or lasik since its the visual cortex who cannot correctly process the data.

If this remains untreated to the age of six or seven you will never recover your vision. Due to strabismus and nystagmus the vision of my right eye is only at 5% so i am a good example of that myself.

A popular treatment for this is to use eyepatches. You disable perception from the better eye and force the brain to use the weaker one so that this part of the visual cortex will also be trained. But this treatment has to start when you are still young for it to have any effect.

HTH

Jeff

p.s. i hope i have explaned it correctly since i am not a native speaker (Had to look up some words in the dictionary)

Re:Only for people who could see at some time

[fredmosby]

Of coarse in a lot of situations people being born blind could be prevented with genetic screening. Although I suspect that for some reason that solution would be more controversial.

Re:Only for people who could see at some time

[jnicholson]

You explained it perfectly.

I had this done as a child. I don't know whether it was necessary or not, but I wore an eyepatch for a while just after I started school when someone realised I couldn't see properly.

I guess it worked. I now have approximately equally crappy vision in either eye.

Re:Only for people who could see at some time

[gordo3000]

Actually, for lots of things, that solution already is controversion. The nytimes had a big article on it about a month ago and I`d post it here except its now part of their archives so I`d have to pay to share it with everyone. but the title was `As Gene Test Menu Grows, Who Gets to Choose? ` if anyone actually wants to know.

Rather, the entire point was, how bad do the genetic defects have to be to make terminating a pregnancy morally correct and because everyone has their own ideas, sometimes doctors have to perform an abortion when they don`t agree with it(examples were something like some mothers terminating because of really bad genetic dfects(deformities of all limbs and mental retardation) as compared to some mothers using it to screen out girls because they wanted a boy).

Really, right now there is nothing legally against it but you have to ask yourself if blindness is that bad of a disability(I personally don`t know, not blind nor is anyone close to me). I think its such a personal question all you could do it make it an option and lots of people would still prefer to have the child even if he/she will be born blind. I hope technologies like this make it so that we don`t even have to get into these kinds of arguments. I mean, maybe one day a doctor can say `your child wil be born blind so we are already preparing to replace his eyes with these that can see just as well`. Who knows, gladly, I`m young enough to see these things possibly happen.

"New Retina? Look no further"

[palion]

Those who look for a new retina simply CAN not look further...

Progress,,,?

[julesh]

I'm sure I remember hearing about a similar experiment about 10 years ago. They'd connected a 5x5 array of electrodes to a patient's optical nerves, and he could see vaguely defined objects. So this is exactly how much progress...?

Re:Progress,,,?

[bwcbwc]

Earlier experiment was for goggles connecting to the brain. This experiment is inside the eye.

Need A New Retina? Look No Further

[caronc]

Of course I won't... I need a new retina!!

Now for the Egyptian Magicians...

[Steve Franklin]

"Restoring sight to the blind is a Bibical miracle"

Well, the really good Egyptian magicians were supposed to be able to reattach a severed head. Now THAT'S technology! Betcha they can't do that at Olympus.

Re:Now for the Egyptian Magicians...

[Daagar]

Reattaching the head is the easy part. Making it functional again, however....

Re:Now for the Egyptian Magicians...

[Steve Franklin]

Well, these guys did manage to get replies to questions from golden statues, so it's possible they really didn't get the head to work in a way we would consider functional. Then again, you don't develop a 3000-year-old civilization without learning something.

Who knows...

[Penguin2212]

Will artificial eyes and retinal replacements someday be as good as good human eyes?

Who knows, someday they may be better than natural human eyes. Maybe, people will opt to have their eyes replaced as a luxury some day.

Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex

[whatsup_will]

if we keep following the way we are going, it will be in no time when we will be living in a world just like that show, ghost in the shell. would be great for those snipers to get better headshots then wasting alot of ammo.

Sense of pride

[tod_miller]

I love Red Dwarf, and I love how it is not understodd by non-brits (or at least, doesn't seem to have been heard of, probably becuse of licensing or suchlike)

That and changing the alert colour bulbs will forever tickle me... :-)

*stiffle smirk*

Re:Sense of pride

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it may not be "understodd" by non-Brits, but this one (any dozens of my friends) understand Red Dwarf, which is quite well distributed here, thank you.

With the U.S. under constant attack for our arrogance, it's good so see you limeys holding up your end.

Re:Sense of pride

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it is understood by non-Brits! I live in central Europe and many of my friends love Red Dwarf . As we do love the BBC Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series or the Monty Python's Flying Circus...

Re:Sense of pride

[G-funk]

a/non-brit/american

Aussies love the dwarf. And of course quite a few nerdy americans do too, so you could cop quite a bit of flak around here :)

Re:Sense of pride

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Red Dwarf is somewhat well-known in the States. We love it!

it colors

[tacensi]

well, now we can read the /. IT articles without fear of damaging the eyes...

The British Magicians!

[sita]

After the Duke of Monmouth was beheaded, they realized there was no official portrait of the guy, so they had his head put back and his portrait painted.

What about auto focus???

[bcarl314]

I hope they can come up with a way to effectively "auto-focus" your new digital eyes. I'm always putzing with my camera's autofocus and it seems to take forever somtimes (note: forever = >.5 seconds). There seems to be a big problems whenever I'm trying to take action shots. The AF can't accuratley predict what I want to focus on.

I just hope that we are able to develop an autofocus system to go with this that 1) can focus as fast as a human eye and 2) can focus on the needed subject.

Interesting development though.

useful but not great

[cyberwitz]

6 months ago I had cataract sugery and an interocular implant. The implant is fantastic, it took me from functionaly blind, in that eye, to pretty usable vision in the eye.

There is absolutely no equal to the organic material of the eye, though. As good as the implant is, it's still like looking at a bad reprint of a picture.

When it comes to the human body, third party products are decent if you can't get the real thing. But, they really aren't (and probably won't be) better.

Re:useful but not great

[duggy_92127]

But, they really aren't (and probably won't be) better.

Gonna have to disagree with you on that parenthetical part. The body is truly the most amazing machine, and nothing we can make now really stacks up to what the body can do, but for the foreseeable future, the human body will essentially be unchanged. 100 years from now, 1000 years from now, if we don't modify the body ourselves, the human body will pretty much be exactly the same as it is now.

So, basically a stationary target. While human SCIENCE is not only progressing, but accelerating, pretty much across the board. Where do you think camera technology will be in 100 years? Where do you think our knowledge of nerves and the brain will be in 200 years? Our knowledge of genetics in 500 years?

It's not only possible to envision extensions of today's technology that's can outclass natural human systems, it's really INEVITABLE that they will. It's only a matter of time before we'll be growing our own gene-enhanced eyes in vats and implanting them in every human to give them perfect vision. That time might be 500 or 1000 years... but it's coming. It would take a society-altering catastrophe to stop it.

Doug

eEyes, eEye....

[nounderscores]

Oh?

karma whoring from fat chicks

[HBI]

Good job, you've discovered a new methodology for earning karma.

privacy

[PsiPsiStar]

Does this mean that the gov.'s tempest project would be able to spy on what we're SEEING?

Or is the power involved far too weak for that.

National Geographic

[Anonymous Coward]

I recall watching a fascinating series on National Geographic back in the 1970's called "The Incredible Machine". The series was quite extraordinary for its time as it dwelved into the functions of the human body by actually showing graphic pictures inside it. One of the segments talked about the human eye. Within the segment, they talked about researches who created a device to allow blind people to see rough silhouettes. It was like a black object on a grey Light Bright, if you will. Not very exciting, unless you were blind.

What amazes me about this current story is that over the last ~30 years, this is all the advancement we've made in this realm?

Oops, forgot to mention...

[xenicson]

that it will help people that are born blind in the future... as they could then use this new technology to train their visual cortex. As for people already born blind, I'm not sure that this will never allow them to see, just that they will probably not be able to get the same level of results as someone that once had sight.

Ony if

[Anonymous Coward]

"Will artificial eyes and retinal replacements someday be as good as good human eyes?"

Only if they look like Uma Thurman's.

Some more info from German company here

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.eye-chip.com/

well, looks like the Germans finally found their way to high-tech in one area ;)

[said he, the German ;)]

Re:Some more info from German company here

[rajiv]

we actually had them listed but the url was bad. i have updated our links page at www.bostonretinalimplant.org/progress/other.xml.

thanks.

www.bostonretinalimplant.org webmaster

I for one ...

[WyerByter]

Welcome our new 6 millon dollar overlords ... Sorry, wrong site.

Oh the possibilties..

[Chineseyes]

Being that I have a quite good looking legally blind lesbian friend having a recording attachment to these things would bring...umm...peace of mind its very important to know that she is..ummm....safe... and being able to record her daily activities would be...uumm...comforting....yeah

Eye of Newt

[jbeaupre]

People have tinkered like this for a long time. My favorite, going back to 1997, is where they combined silicon and eye of newt. No kidding! http://www.devicelink.com/mddi/archive/99/07/003.h tml

Video-game inputs?

[supabeast!]

What I want to know is, when can I get a DVI-female port wired into my eyes so I can play video games without using a monitor?

Imagine a beowulf cluster of these...

[jellybear]

Behold!

Oh the irony

[gosand]

I am wondering if anyone got the irony of the title of the article, and if it was worded like that on purpose.

Re:Please wont somebody think of the blind diabeti

[Lucas Membrane]

Will this help diabetics? Does they remove the old retina when they put one of these in? If the meat retina bleeds (as it does in diabetics with retinopathy), and if the blood blocks the view (as it does in diabetics with retinopathy), what good is having a synthetic retina back there? You'd have to have a camera outboard somehwere wired up to the optic nerve, no?

BTW, when your retinas are bleeding, it's because of blood vessel changes caused by the diabetes, and there's a very good chance that the same thing is going on in your kidneys. Retina implant don't help the kidneys, and you can't see for long without kidneys.

Better prospect for diabetics is an implant to monitor blood sugar continuously and administer insulin just like your defunct pancreas is supposed to. The implantable monitors have been approved for human trials by FDA.

How are you going to power these things?

[tokenhillbilly]

I mean what happens if your on the road and forget your charger? You wake up in the morning and all you see is a little battery low indicator. Since you got your eyes last year, non of the stores carry a charger for your obsolete eyes.

Re:How are you going to power these things?

[Raptor CK]

Do you forget your wallet? Your house keys? Do you need contacts of glasses? If so, do you forget those?

Does a paraplegic forget his wheelchair? Do hearing aid users forget batteries?

I'm sure that anyone who gets this implant will be VERY careful not leave it behind. Also, I'm sure that since it's medical equipment, the option will exist to run off of fairly standard batteries. It's not like you can't find hearing aid batteries in the local drugstore, why not retinal implant batteries?

Re:How are you going to power these things?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's obviously a joke you retarded ape!

Re:How are you going to power these things?

[drinkypoo]

The last system like this I read was monochromatic and consisted of PV cells connected to electrodes. As such it's self-powering - if there's light to see by, the thing is "on".

Re:How are you going to power these things?

[Damingo]

Why not stick one of those batries which charge from movement in. Like the one in my watch. Seeing as the head is so far above the center of grav, surely the batts will charge loads.

Grrr....

[JFMulder]

Need A New Retina? Look No Further
I can't look cause I'm already blind you insensitive clod!

Automatic Upgrades? Don't Think So.

[Anonymous Coward]

...will automatically get enhanced vision

Dude, I don't think it will be automatic. Remember, circumcision has been around for thousands of years, and even this common sense health modification doesn't get done on all newborn males automatically.

VOILA not VIOLA

[dew-genen-ny]

Seriously, how many times!!!

Re:VOILA not VIOLA

[Dmala]

It's still less annyoing than "walla".

Re:Please wont somebody think of the blind diabeti

[Colourspace]

Interesting point about the kidneys - I didn't know that. Whats that phenomenon called exactly - I'd like to look it up. My blood control recently has vastly improved due to glargine and I am now seeing my bloods averaging around the 8 mark which should prevent more damage. I volunteered for the trials of the implantable monitors here in the UK - unfortunately I am in the control group so don't get to live out my cyborg fantasies.

Not Analog, Optical.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not called "analog zoom". It's "optical zoom". Big difference.

When you zoom an OPTICAL LENS, you're still working with the original subject matter (light), and you haven't really degraded what you want to sample. Just the opposite. But if you don't zoom the original optical image, instead sampling it at low quality, and then expect to magically use digital technology to make low quality data into high quality data, then obviously, you'll be disappointed.

On the other hand, if you make a DIGITAL, OPTICAL LENS, it would quite possibly be better than analog lenses, but no one has invented such a thing yet.

My mother needs this...

[thogard]

My mother needs this but she fond a different solution that only cost something like $500,000 for 2 operations on each eyeball. Thanks to her addction to Virginia slims, she can't see any more but thanks to so expiermental surgey that is only needed by tobacco druggies, she can see again. How many people can afford to have their eyeballs layers separated, encouraged to regrow and then put back together by a huge team of surgeons?

printf("%s",szDeity)???

[Anonymous Coward]

fag. Actually, bestial scat-swilling fag for the hungarian notation.

Re:useful but not great - use a tooth

[openSoar]

Apparently it's possible to replace a damaged cornea with one of your own teeth - I remember seeing a TV show about a guy who did it - I can't find that story but here's another example.

Great!

[defile]

Now lets fix amblyopia!

Wikipedia: Amblyopia or lazy eye is a disorder of the eyes. It is characterised by poor or dim vision in an eye that is otherwise physically healthy and normal. The problem is normally due to a faulty connection between the eye and the brain, which did not develop correctly during early childhood. Amblyopia normally only affects one eye, but it is possible to be amblyopic in both eyes.

Re:Great!

[ricosalomar]

Hear, hear!
They didn't find mine till I was 9. I had to wear a patch for two years. My vision got better, but it's still pretty wack. BTW, Don Henley has it, too.

Can we hit somebody for that headline?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please?

Sounds like Geordi in TNG

[Thieron]

Sounds a lot like what they had for Geordi in ST:TNG. He wore the visor which transmitted the images for him. Later he went to an implant on the eye.

In B5 they had G'Kar using a fake eye which transmitted to an implant at the base of the socket.

I imagine that as they develop the ability to shrink the transmitter it'll move from a pack on the belt, to a part of the eyewear, eventually maybe to a fake eye.

This is cool!

"Common sense" health modification - not

[hab136]

Dude, I don't think it will be automatic. Remember, circumcision has been around for thousands of years, and even this common sense health modification doesn't get done on all newborn males automatically.

Common sense isn't. Circumcision is not only unecessary, but risky and detrimental to one's health.

The only reason to circumcise is religous - there is no medical reason, and there are good medical reasons not to.

There is no extra care required to be uncircumcised - basically, leave it alone, wash the outside (as you would circumcised).

http://www.cirp.org/

http://www.sexuallymutilatedchild.org/

Re:"Common sense" health modification - not

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer to have someone else wash it. Preferably with her tongue.

Re:"Common sense" health modification - not

[Anonymous Coward]

"wash the outside (as you would circumcised)."

Spoken like an uncut man!

Re:"Common sense" health modification - not

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true, it had valid health reasons. Anywhere that has reached industrialization or even advanced agricultural technology no longer needs it, though; the parent is on religicrack.

Re:"Common sense" health modification - not

[pherthyl]

There is a small increased risk of penile cancer with uncircumcised males. But there's no overwhelmingly good arguments either side.

I tend to be of the belief that theres probably a reason that it's there. Just like the fad of removing everyone's appendix, or tonsils. Eventually we figure out that removing them is either harmful or useless.

Re:"Common sense" health modification - not

[Vombatus]

leave it alone

Damn, thats what I'm doing wrong

Well that's fecked that then...

[cassidyc]

No more biometric retinal scans

who's for going the whole hog and inventing replacable fingers, faces etc

CJC

How long before...

[Abroun]

...the first pop-up ads appear?

Quote

[Amorpheus_MMS]

Restoring sight to the blind is a Bibical miracle, a sign of divine powers.

Who was it that said "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"?

Re:Quote

[narcc]

Who was it that said "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"?

Arthur C. Clarke (Famous author of: 2001, Childhoods End, Songs of Distant Earth, and many others)

The quote you're discribing the third of Clarkes Three Laws[1] first published in an essay titled "Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination", in Profiles of the Future

There is also a corollary to the third law that states any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced (Gregory Benford [2] first proposed this in Foundation's Fear[3])

Hope that Helps.

References:
[1] Clarke's Three Laws, Wikipedia.org
[2] Gregory Benford, Wikipedia.org
[3] Foundation's Fear, Wikipedia.org

Solution to biometrics issues?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the issues raised with biometrics is that you can't change your eye if someone gets a hold of your retina pattern and uses it to steal your identity. Well no more, now you can get a new eye and a new identity with it.

Credits go to Walter Jon Williams

[palad1]

I love my Kikuyu eyes, sez primo pornostar Rod McLeish, and with the infrared option, I can tell if my partner's really excited of if I'm just on a silicon ride ... KIKUYU OPTICS I.G., A DIVISION OF MIKOYAN-GUREVICH

A few retinal implant details

[skkellymit]

This implant is meant for people suffering from retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration. It is not meant as a replacement for functional eyes. :)

It will likely not be as good as normal vision for a *very* long time, if ever; it is meant to return some mobility and possibly face and detail recognition to people who have gone blind by retinal degeneration.

Furthermore, this is not a "cure" for these diseases. The rods and cones still die, but are "replaced" by an external camera and some implanted circuits and electrodes to stimulate the retinal nerves which form the optic nerve.

In response to those asking whether this is new: it's not. Most of the groups working on artificial vision (retinal implants, cortical implants, optic nerve implants) have been at it for well over a decade. What is new is the development by some of these groups of actual implantable devices, as shown in the Technology Review article. Previous experiments typically involved electrodes inserted into the eye of a blind volunteer for a short time, with all of the electronics remaining outside.

Other artificial vision & nerve regen projects

[maynard]

This Eurekalert article discusses a new technique using chemical messengers to lead nerve growth toward a specific site. While originally intended for spinal regrowth after severe trauma, it (and the many other research projects online the same line) would appear relevant to this artificial vision project. They're trying to save the optical nerve so they can stimulate from the eye to the brain. If they could regrow nerve tissue care in surgical placement of the implant during eye surgery might be of less concern.

Also, PBS has a series Innovation - Life, inspired where one of the episodes discusses another artificial vision procedure consisting of a direct ocular brain implant currently in human trials. The program follows a patient who has the surgical procedure done and then her recuperation and initial testing of the implant. Most interesting. They also show another group who is trying a different kind of brain implant, but who haven't yet made it to human trials.

Between nerve / brain cell regrowth and implant research ongoing we will likely see amazing cures for formerly untreatable injuries and illnesses within our lifetimes. It's pretty amazing to see the beginnings of Bionic Man type stuff actually happen in my lifetime. --M

blind from birth

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard about people blind from birth gaining their sight. They went crazy because sight was to much for them to handle. Anyone else hear of this?

Re:blind from birth

[cr0sh]

I would have to almost say this is an "urban legend" or something - you hear all the time about people who lose their sight, and while I am sure many (perhaps even most) suffer from temporary depression and anxiety from being plunged into a world of darkness, I doubt they "go crazy". That isn't to say spontaneously gaining sight wouldn't cause these people discomfort or anxiety, though. Just that it wouldn't be a cause for them to have a mental breakdown. I can also imagine headaches and mental stress from the new information coming into their brain - I have heard that after a certain point, if the brain hasn't had visual stimulus or proper development (like from a non-corrected lazy eye or something) - after a certain age it never develops properly. I could only imagine at that point the stimulus could be anything from a 24/7 light show (with no real information), or at least when the eyes are open (something I have always wondered about - many blind people close their eyes, like they are sleeping - it seems like an involuntary response, and not a conscious decision)...

Re:blind from birth

[pclminion]

There are people who have gained some amount of sight after living the majority of their lives without it.

They don't go crazy, but they do find it nearly impossible to make sense of what they are seeing. Rather than seeing a scene composed of individual objects, they witness a jumble of light and color which is hard to interpret.

When a human is born, the vision system is not yet fully finished. Both the brain and the retina (which is part of the brain) have to learn how to process and interpret the visual information into a more abstract symbolic form.

People who gain sight after a lifetime without it usually never learn to fully "see" things as normally sighted people do.

Ever heard of proofreading or spellcheck?

[Angry Black Man]

"Restoring sight to the blind is a Bibical miracle, a sign of divine powers."

I think the word you're searching for is "Biblical"

Re:Ever heard of proofreading or spellcheck?

[mikestro]

At least you didn't get modded to -1, Offtopic.

Sadly, I think the average IQ for the people posting the articles and moderators moderating them is getting lower and lower by the day.

Re:Ever heard of proofreading or spellcheck?

[Anonymous Coward]

the byproduct of years of oppression by the white man

No, you're the racist byproduct of racist parents. Bad angry black man, no reparations!

Re:Ever heard of proofreading or spellcheck?

[Anonymous Coward]

At least you didn't get modded to -1, Offtopic.

He should get modded Offtopic! After all, his post is Offtopic...

Just seems logical to me, thats all.

Re:Ever heard of proofreading or spellcheck?

[mikestro]

So typical. Sometimes logical behavior makes no common sense, but that is (of course) stating the obvious.

Re: driving FORBIDDEN?!

[nusratt]

"some governments have banned any person who has had laser eye surgery from driving at all"

sorces/referenes, please?

driving FORBIDDEN?!

[nusratt]

"some governments have banned any person who has had laser eye surgery from driving at all"

sources/referenes, please

why is this better than routing the signals

[nusratt]

. . . directly to the visual cortex?

Oh, I thought it said...

[davidsyes]

Boston Rectal Implant Project...

But, I guess that might involve USB connectors, PnP devices...

Re:Biblical not Bibical - how is this offtopic?

[mikestro]

How is this offtopic? Slashdot is beginning to get pathetic.

retna

[panic911]

So does this mean that the super secure retna scanning that we all know and love is going to be virtually useless?

And next...

[Anonymous Coward]

They will be offering digital X-Ray glasses!

won't need monitors, just output porn to retina

[Anonymous Coward]

Just plug your head into your computer.

Heck, by that time, there will be a computer integrated in you and you can download porn wirelessly.

New cyborg part!

[Corwn of Amber]

I can't wait to get one!

Hey, imagine plugging your eyes directly to your computer! Now THAT would be cool! What resolution could the brain handle? I suppose, with its abilities to re-wire itself, that can be set to pretty high levels...

Now, as for deciding - ADC, VGA, DVI, DVJ, strange Sun format I can't remember the name of? Or maybe that would be too geeky and we'd just have composite or cinch... at least for the general public...

Note to self : do not post when stoned. You could get bad karma.

Obscure Babylon 5 reference...

[Anonymous Coward]

In the "dept." line.

That is the kind of thing that makes you love Slashdot. :-)

Oblig. Bladerunner quote...

[Anonymous Coward]

"I only do eyes!"

Sight to Blind

[Anonymous Coward]

The Boston Foundation for Sight has restored good sight to over 600 people with cornea problems using a plastic liquid filled jumbo lens. find them at bostonsight.org

Good?

[Dwonis]

Since when are human eyes good?

Ewe ingorent LIMEY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Eye em knot britisch, end aye undurstend read dworf pirfekly wel.

Headline

[Aranwe Haldaloke]

Need A New Retina? Look No Further

Phew, that's a good thing. My retina was on its last legs already, and I couldn't look any further even if I tried.

Steve Mann

[Anonymous Coward]

and that's why Steve Mann is tackling the problems of tomorrow, today.

www.wearcam.org

Not entirely correct...

[blahplusplus]

Not at all DIGITAL can be just as good as analog, the only thing that holds back digital in the world of sound and image magnification is the the sampling rate/quality/ratio. This is hardly a problem. At some point the sampling rate for digital becomes so good and fine that the benefits of digital reproduction/data storage and transmission outweigh its analog counterparts.

I will ask you again, maynard:

[Anonymous Coward]

Who told you that you're allowed to post to slashdot again? I certainly didn't tell you that, and I don't mind using karma points to bring the universe back into balance.