Slashdot Mirror
MIT Microchip Could Someday Restore Vision
CWmike writes "Researchers at MIT have developed a microchip that could, one day, enable blind people to regain some level of vision. By combining wireless technology, eyeglasses equipped with a camera, and the chip, they should be able to restore at least some vision to people who suffer from retinitis pigmentosa or age-related macular degeneration, two of the leading causes of blindness, the scientists say. The chip, which is designed to be attached to the eyeball, would pick up images sent from the camera and electrically stimulate the nerve cells that normally carry visual input from the retina to the brain. The chip is sealed in a titanium case to keep water from leaking in and damaging its circuitry. At this point, the technology is not expected to restore normal vision, but MIT said it should provide the ability to navigate around a room or walk down a sidewalk. 'Anything that could help them see a little better and let them identify objects and move around a room would be an enormous help,' said Shawn Kelly, a researcher in MIT's Research Laboratory for Electronics. 'If they can recognize faces of people in a room, that brings them into the social environment as opposed to sitting there waiting for someone to talk to them.'"
Here are some questions I have about the chip:
- These chips/systems already exist. What's new about this MIT effort? The Computerworld article was very sparse.
- There's a great deal of bidirectional communication that goes on in normal eyes-- information not only flowing from eye to brain, but from brain to eye as well. As far as I know these tech just discards these signals. Is this important?
- Last I heard, this sort of technology was approaching 1000 effective pixels of visual information (assuming ideal electrode placement). Has this effort from MIT pushed this boundary? How does '1000 effective pixels' compare to the eye's effective resolution? Can we put normal vision in terms of pixel resolution?
- I've read about shunting tactile senses (for instance, the nerves on a person's tongue) over to a digital videocamera. I believe the military has done a fair bit of research into this. Could this sort of approach be viable for helping the blind function as well? Could it become the preferred approach since it seems less invasive than ocular- and neuro-surgery?
This is a total waste of time. Nature already has the best eye.. all we have to do is grow it.. But for the sake of technology, this stuff is great and can result in advances in other fields and products.. maybe someday allowing us to replace our eyes with totally hackable bionic eyes hooked into the internet and capable of playing all the porn we want anytime we want it.. shit, I missed my bus again..
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
It is now official. Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be the Amazing Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
Gee, I wonder where they got this idea from...
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
If this is as "great" as modern hearing aids, I will pass.
I have no desire to live with "coleco vision" for the remainder of my life.
I have to agree, even games that allow you to research multiple things at one time don't really give you any benefit to doing so. Space Empires, I'm looking at you.
Doing Tech 1 then 2 then 3 will get you the three techs just as fast as doing 1+2+3, with the added benefit that you'll get 1 and 2 a couple turns faster.
Personally, I'd do something like give a 1-10% advantage per additional tech you're researching to show the benefits of synergy and that a scientist suited for researching lasers is probably not going to do as good in biology.
Hmm... In a 'Research Point' setting, how about the points that go to a research field = RP/(number of research activities + 1).
1000 RP, 1 research topic (crash development) = 500 RP to that topic
1000 RP, 2 research topics (priority) = 333 RP to each topic, totaling 666
1000 RP, 9 topics = 100 RP each, each will take 5 times as long, but you'll get 9 techs in the time it'd take to get 5 serially.
Anyways, back more on the thread topic, growing new eyes would be great, but you still have the problem of restoring the nerve pathways and retraining the brain. It's entirely possible that you'd want a chip between the new eye and the brain to play translator, to make the transition earlier. Reducing therapy/usefulness from 5 years to 6 months (for example) might make it worth it.
I don't read AC A human right
I hope the fix isn't anything like Geordi's Visor! But who knows, now the blind can pick up electromagnetic fields to prove all those new-age people were right about magnets after all! ;-)
... to keep a Cadillac driver on the road for a few more decades. Also, if they can put their glasses up on the dashboard, not being able to see over the steering wheel will no longer be an issue.
Have gnu, will travel.
<begin parody>
It is now official. Slashdot confirms: "*BSD is Dying" trolls are dying
One more crippling post filter hit the already beleagured troll community when Slashdot confirmed that "*BSD is Dying" portion of troll posts has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all offtopic posts. Coming on the heels of a recent Slashdot poll which plainly states that "*BSD is Dying" trolls have lost everyone's interest years ago, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Slashdot has accumulated a complete troll disarray, as fitting exemplified by fighting dead, pointless flames always in the recent Troll Script comprehensive comment maker.
You don't need to be the Amazing William to predict these trolls' futures. The hand writing is on the wall: all trolls face a bleak, non-social future. In fact there won't be any future at all for trolls because they will likely fail to reproduce. Things are looking very bad for trolls. As many of us are already aware, trolls continue to lose posts to Slashdot's filters. Pointless trolling scripts flow like a sewage.
The antisocialite is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core social skills. The sudden and unpleasant departures and long times of bottling up frustration only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longeer be any doubt: "*BSD is Dying" trolls are dying.
Let's make up statistics like politicians do.
GNAA trolls state that there are 7000 IPs for posting. How many of those IPs aren't blocked yet? Let's see. The number of GNAA versus random-one-liner ("faggot", typically) useless posts on slashdot is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 IPs for random-one-liner trolls. Shill-accusation posts are about half the volume of random-one-liners. Therefore there are about 700 IPs posting shill-accusations. A recent article article put Natalie-Portman-posts at about 80 percent of the nonsense. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Natalie-Portman-comments. This is consistent with the number of trolls hanging around.
Due to the troubles of story archiving, abysmal moderation and so on, the Natalie-Portman trolls went out of their way to be taken over by trolls who were confused about troubled story ID numbers. Now the comment system is also dead, its corpse turned over to Slashdot 2.0.
All major surveys show that "*BSD is Dying" trolls have steadily declined in Slashdot posts. Those trolls are very sociopathic and their long term survival propects are very dim. If "*BSD is Dying" is to survive at all it will be among the Internet Wayback Machine and the Library of Congress. "*BSD is Dying" trolls continue to decay. Nothing short of a social miracle could save them at at this point in time. For all practical purposes, "BSD is Dying" troll posts are.... not amusing.
<end parody> I'm going to Hell for this... salutations to CmdrTaco, you do an awesome job. Yep, I fed a troll, maybe he was actually hungry in a useful way...
Similar things have been reported for *at least* 30 years.
In the 1970's, I recall a sensor that clipped to eye glasses and connected to electrodes on the back of the user. I want to say that it was 16x16 or 32x32, but it provided enough "vision" to navigate and see objects.
A few months ago, iirc, was a report which used nerves on the tongue.
These reports are evolutionary, not revolutionary. A good thing, but it's not as if this is a breakthrough changing the world from "nothing to let the see" to "now they can see."
More efficient, easier to handle, lower cost--sure, but that's just the regular advancement of technology.
hawk
http://www.iblindness.org/
Just not profitable enough I suppose.
"Damn it! Where are my glasses!?"
Last I heard, this sort of technology was approaching 1000 effective pixels of visual information (assuming ideal electrode placement). Has this effort from MIT pushed this boundary? How does '1000 effective pixels' compare to the eye's effective resolution? Can we put normal vision in terms of pixel resolution?
To get an idea of the eye's effective resolution, think of a very high resolution monitor -- resolution so high that you couldn't tell the difference between it and a higher-resolution monitor sitting next to it. That's how much resolution the eye has.
Reviewers used to say that you didn't need a digital camera with a resolution greater than 5 megapixels, unless you were going to enlarge it. So 5 MP, which is about a 2,000x2,000 pixel line, sounds like a good guess. That's about 0.1 degree per pixel, which sounds about right.
That's not exactly right, because the eye doesn't take in a whole scene at once. It aims at different parts of the scene, with (in humans) the macula, which has higher resolution than the rest of the retina. So it's more efficient than a camera.
Besides resolution, contrast is also important. And the retina can recognize movement directly.
There's also a lot of image processing that goes on from the retina, to the optical nerve, through the processing centers in the brain. The retina figures out edges, points, movement, and color, and passes it on, then the brain figures out 3D stereoscopic information, objects, figures out what the objects are, recognizes them, and passes them on to other parts of the brain for higher processing. I think there are some error-correction circuits. There's a lot of great research on this.
This is oversimplified. There are people who enjoy correcting oversimplified explanations, and some of them know more about this than I do. I will leave it to them to enjoy themselves.
People with macular degeneration can already walk down a sidewalk or navigate around a room. They still have peripheral vision.
The macula is the spot at the center of the retina which has the highest concentration of receptors and the highest resolution.
It's damn useful, and it's hard (though not impossible) to read and identify faces without it. But macular degeneration spares the peripheral vision, so people can still get around. It's not "cane-tapping" blind. There are also some methods of using the peripheral vision to replace the macula with optical manipulation with fancy glasses, or digital manipulation.
Not that I would complain about the accuracy of a Slashdot story, but it's a teachable moment.
The real innovation of that MIT group is to place a titanium implant in the eye which can last a year in a pig. It's great work on the long, hard road to replacing the retina. I don't expect to see it in my lifetime, but hats off to anyone who can prove me wrong.
I'm sick and fucking tired of web sites that are a slim stip of content down the middle, with horseshit on the side.
Someday? Yeah, great.
"Second Sight expects the Argus II to be its first commercially available device, hitting the United States market in 2010. Mech said the company hasn't set a price, but suggested the Argus II would cost more than a cochlear implant. That could put the price between $60,000 and $100,000. Meanwhile, he hopes to start clinical trials in 2011 for a third generation of the device with more than 200 electrodes." [Science Notes 2009] http://scicom.ucsc.edu/SciNotes/0901/pages/vision/vision.html [Integrated Bioelectronics Research] http://ibr.soe.ucsc.edu/index.php?file=kop10.php
Retinitis Pigmentosa is often grouped in the same family with Macular Degeneration, but it is different. With RP, the peripheral vision is most affected, along with night vision. It can be "cane-tapping" blind, but it depends on the individual and environment. Navigation in unfamiliar places is very difficult.
As an individual with RP, I love hearing about new technologies and research that may one day help others with RP. I have no delusions that anything will help me in my lifetime, but I have hope for future generations.