DoE-Sponsored Project Readies Human Trial For Artificial Retinas

An anonymous reader writes "'The blind will see again,' could be the motto of the Artificial Retina Project, which is getting ready to implant a 60-pixel artificial retina chip into 10 blind patients later this year. 60-pixels doesn't sound like much, but the 1st gen artificial retina brought tears to the eyes of its six recipients, who claim they can now count large objects with just 16-pixels. If all goes well, a 200-pixel retina will be ready in three years; the chip used is of a 1.2-micron CMOS process, with both power and video supplied wirelessly." (And this is sponsored by the Department of Energy for what reason?)

Comments

Re:Why the DOE?

[croftj]

You're a troll! So tell me why is the DOE sponsoring this? Why does every agency in our government have to do things in the areas where there are already government agencies which should be doing it.

To me it's more like a volley ball game where all of the players are to busy playing their team members positions to mind their own position.

  I can't imagine that the DOE doesn't have enough Energy related issues at hand to keep them plenty busy w/o loosing focus on the blind (pun only half intended).