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Bionic Eye Could Restore Vision
MattSparkes writes "A new bionic eye could restore vision to the profoundly blind. A prototype was tested on six patients and 'within a few weeks all could detect light, identify objects and even perceive motion again. For one patient, this was the first time he had seen anything in half a century.' The user wears a pair of glasses that contain a miniature camera and that wirelessly transmits video to a cellphone-sized computer in the wearer's pocket. This computer processes the image information and wirelessly transmits it to a tiny electronic receiver implanted in the wearer's head."
Hey--I worked on this as my dissertation: "Multiple Unit Artificial Retina Chipset to Aid the Visually
Impaired and Enhanced CMOS Phototransistors"
Multiple-Unit Artificial Retina Chipset
Dr. Elliot McGucken
Physics
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
NC State University
A computer-chip based device that can provide limited-resolution vision
for people with retinal-based blindness. Beneficiaries would be 10,000,000
people worldwide suffering from forms of blindness including retinal
pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration.
MERRILL LYNCH "INNOVATION GRANTS" AWARDED TO FIVE DOCTORAL STUDENTS
DOCTORAL RESEARCH YIELDS GROUNDBREAKING PROPOSALS RANGING FROM NEW
COMPUTER CHIPS TO A MALE ORAL CONTRACEPTIVE
NEW YORK, Sept.16 -- The Merrill Lynch Forum today announced the first
winners of the Innovation Grants Competition -- its global competition
challenging doctoral students to craft commercial applications of their
dissertation research. The winners were recognized at an awards dinner at
Merrill Lynch headquarters last night (Sept. 15), hosted by Merrill Lynch
Chairman and CEO David H. Komansky.
Dr. Jan Mark Noworolski, from the University of California at Berkeley,
received the top prize in the competition for creating a new type of power
converter, a key element in virtually all electronic devices. This
technology would greatly reduce the size, parts count and weight of power
supplies for the increasingly pervasive array of portable electronic
products such as cell phones and laptop computers, as well as enabling the
design of new mobile electronic products. "Power management is one of the
major constraints in personal electronics," he said. "An integrated design
using this technology could offer a 10-fold improvement in device
performance."
A total of 213 proposals from 16 countries were submitted to the
competition, which was open to new Ph.D. recipients in the sciences,
liberal arts, and engineering disciplines. Entries were judged by a
distinguished panel of nine entrepreneurs, venture capitalists,
journalists, and innovators and were considered without knowledge of the
applicants' identity or academic affiliation.
"Academic research is a significant and often untapped source of
intellectual capital in our society, and a tremendous economic resource,"
said Merrill Lynch Chairman and CEO David H. Komansky. "The winning
proposals from this competition are all excellent examples of how new
knowledge can be transformed into new value simply by encouraging
researchers to look at their research from a different perspective. We
hope that these Innovation Grants will help foster a closer interaction
between world-class science and the world of commerce," Mr. Komansky
added.
The judging panel consisted of:
John Seely Brown, Chief Scientist, Xerox Corporation, and Director, Xerox
Palo Alto Research Center Edgar W. K. Cheng, former Chairman, The Stock
Exchange of Hong Kong John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield &
Byers Esther Dyson, Chairman, EDventure Holdings, Inc. Peter C. Goldmark,
Chairman and Chief Executive, The International Herald Tribune William
Haseltine, Chairman & CEO, Human Genome Sciences, Inc. John Markoff,
Technology Correspondent, The New York Times Edward McKinley, President,
E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Company International, Ltd. Arati Prabhakar, former
Chief Technology Officer, Raychem Corporation In evaluating the
applications, the judges sought to identify proposals with the potential
to affect real change in industries and in the way people live their
lives. "The Innovation Grants Competition is a terrific idea," said judge
John Doerr, of venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. "I
was impressed with many of the proposals and thought that several of the
ideas would merit a venture-capital follow-up."
The five winning entries: