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Blind Soldier Uses Tongue To "See"
Zen found this story about a blind soldier using a lollypop-sized tongue sensor to 'see.' The system actually enables him to walk and read unaided. The guy says, "It feels like licking a nine-volt battery or like popping candy. The camera sends signals down onto the lollypop and onto your tongue, you can then determine what they mean and transfer it to shapes."
Keep an eye on the LHC this guy might use it to weaponize some warhead full of nanomachines...
god that was a bad movie
Thank god this system uses a camera and a tongue sensor. The title made me think of that creepy guy on the bus that licks everything.
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
Yet another example of the adaptability of the human brain. I wonder what the resolution of such a system would be? What's the possibility of being able to read with it?
And a minor pedantic point. It's not a sensor on his tongue. A sensor is an input device. This is an output device (relative to the computer "device")...
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
He has his problem licked!
And it wouldn't just be for blind people anymore!
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
Actually, all he needs to stop looking silly is to attach a straw to the device and two beers to the side of his head. If you see a guy like that on the street, you won't think he's a creative blind man, you'll just think it's a guy ready for a party at any given moment.
This signature serves no purpose other than to help you see which posts were made by me.
The man with one tongue is king.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Because some people talk out of their asses. :)
Hard to put something in your talking orifice if it stops you from communicating readily...
We covered something four years ago similar to this and I think Brain Port has been exploiting the sensivity of the tongue for multiple fields. I think I had read another article about the military using this because they could control their individual movements more efficiently and silently due to the extreme sensitivity of the tongue.
Sci-fi has long written about sensory perception extensions but I enjoy hearing about the exploitation of our most sensitive inputs. It's amazing to think that we have spent so much time trying to tap our already exploited senses of sight and sound when there was lower hanging fruit to be collected from sensitive areas of touch. I guess inhibiting speech would be an inconvenience here. Could also make for some really alien looking devices coming out of peoples mouths.
Could this be applied to other ares of touch like your underarm or -- dare I say it -- underwear?
My work here is dung.
Wouldn't this affect his taste buds greatly having a feeling of a 9 volt battery constantly?
"Ith theelth ike hicking a gnine-holt batthery or hike popping khandy."
From this guy's experience, a majority of stuff looks just like chicken.
BrainPort Lets the Blind "See" With Their Tongues
Yes, the brain really is remarkable.
I've seen different variants on this a few times, like encoding images in what to me sounds like modem noise but according to the blind people in question apparently let them see a picture .
Or when they were trying to hook monkeys up to an artificial arm with a direct neural interface and once it started working a little and the primates started getting feedback from the arms they found that while the researchers were trying to improve their algorithms for interpreting the output from the brain the brains were adapting their output to fit the algorithms better and as such get better control.
"Science: it works bitches!"
before long, he won't be thinking about deciphering "square", "circle", "room" etc. If my understanding is correct, he really will be able to see with his tongue, in the same way you or I see with our eyes. It'll wire the tongue up to the vision center.
The brain is flippin' cool.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
What's the possibility of being able to read with it?
The system actually enables him to walk and read unaided
I would say 100%
Check out the book "The Brain that Changes Itself" if you're interested in this sort of thing.
With all the exercise this guy gets, I'll bet he's very popular with the ladies.
Instead of anal plug a fake vagina would make much more sense. The penis has 20,000 nerve endings, the anus has a lot but not nearly as many. The tongue having 10,000~ (probably more than the anus). But the tongue is best since it is closer to where the camera would be. And it it likely more hygenic. As well if the soldier were to get aroused he would go blind, which would be unhelpful.
The article mentions 400 points of contact on the tongue, so that could be 20x20 pixels.
It also says they're trying to expand it to 4000 points.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/08/22/2035256/BrainPort-Lets-the-Blind-See-With-Their-Tongues
from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
'nuff said.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Back then it was just an experiment. Cool to see it being used in practice. Here is the link that goes to ABC news:
http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=2401551&page=1
Also, technically he's not a "soldier". He's a "marine". Us Army guys are "soliders" :)
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
Perfect new technology for judging wet tee shirt contests...
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
http://www.gizmag.com/visually-impaired-see-the-world-sound/12164/ Instead of using electric pulses that the person has to translate, sound pulses are used. I still think it'd be cool if they made a completely artificial eyeball or something like that because i seriously doubt translating signals like that is even close to the 1337nessof real eyesight.
I'd imagine that it wouldn't be too difficult to use a wireless link from the camera to a battery powered dental retainer like receiver (think junior high and pimples). This way, the wearer, wouldn't draw unnecessary gawking. A few drawbacks, perhaps, would be that the tongue would need to be flush with the retainer on the roof of the mouth, so no talking whilst looking. Also, if you are running up a flight of stairs and need to draw breath through the mouth, it may impede vision. I am sure, a sighted person, could use this device to "see" light out of our normal range. What would it be like to see IR or UV?
Well, I guess I should have clarified a bit more. When I said read, I mean read normal text (a book, a screen, etc), not just a few giant letters put in the field of view (Which given the resolution --400px-- is a fair assumption about how they define read)...
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
That's not pedantic. It's right. i wish i had mod points for you. His tongue is the input, the lollypop is the output.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Did anyone else think "Wow, if he wore earplugs and glasses to cover his eyes, he'd be just like the converts in Tommy, the rock opera."?
He has but one small tongue to taste the world.
As well if the soldier were to get aroused he would go blind, which would be unhelpful.
On the bright side, it would prove several generations of parents correct.
Your voice has changed, but damned if your breath ain't the same.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Now the real question is, how will eating look like to someone trained to use this?
I would prefer not to be reminded of goatse whenever I bite into a burger.
They should really see, er, hear, er, um, taste? this information.
a 9-volt battery powered tongue. i guess a woman invented this
Walk with me, talk with me wouldn't work?
Though Google seems to have lost most of the articles, I remembered this from back in 2002, and I was able to find at least a few results such as Eyes in the Back of Your Mouth. It sounds like this article is talking about improvements (more refined matrix, portability) and deployments of the same technology. A quote from the link above:
-HobophobE
Nothing laughs forever.
Really, its just another input device as another reader mentioned. There is however a way to use just your tounge to find your way around. I saw a program on it, and a number of folks "click", in effect doing human echo-location. A much more interesting solution to the the vision problem...
Does this mean that blind people can now read PLAYBOY for more than just the articles?
But the normal state of a penis when in a vagina is erect, not flaccid. I think it would be a bit distracting, don't you?
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I guess you must be incredibly intelligent then.
when he actually eats some pop rocks.. or eats something real spicy - does he 'see' what he's tasting? Is it like shooting stars, or like a blizzard, or no effect?
Are the camera points laid on the tongue like a grid, or scattered all over? So maybe he associates left/right with sour and salty, and up and down with bitter and sweet?
So, when eating an ice cream cone, does he trip more?
When drinking a black coffee, does he subconsciously duck?
When walking down a narrow hallway does he think of that night with your mom?
There was an earlier version that used a golf ball camera. Vertical was the frequency spectrum -- high for up, and low for down. Horizontal was the time delay from start. Using it was described as like learning a new language. If this is the same thing, the hardware was revised.
http://www.seeingwithsound.com/
To be fair, there are never just a couple of douches.
The Army/Marines goes where it is ordered to by the civilian government. There is no need to lie the to military as long as the orders are legal. He did not have a choice in going anywhere, unless he broke his oath.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
...that will enable me to learn to see infrared, or magnetic resonance, or metal detection, or high-pitched sounds that only dogs can hear, or police radar?
Yet another example of the adaptability of the human brain.
More than some might realize.
Some decades ago (when a camera was not practically portable) a similar device was built with an array of vibrators on the back for the interface. This worked as well (though the resolution was necessarily low both because of the size of the vibrators and because the back has a low density of touch sensors).
But one event was telling:
At one point the camera tipped over into the scene it was viewing. The subject reflexively threw his hands up to "protect his eyes". (Later the blind-from-birth subject said he now had a referent for the word "looming".)
This event implies that the subject's brain had routed the input from the touch sensors on his back into his visual processing at a stage before the "dangerously close incoming object" detection. So he was "really seeing" without eyes.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"I'm sorry, I don't know what you look like, do you mind if I lick your face?"
On the other hand, if this becomes common, I could pretend to be blind. I have a terrible licking habit.
...will find it difficult to make his words good. ~Confucius
Phillip J. Fry: "Huh. Did everything just taste purple for a second?"
Yes, yes it did.
If you could put this kind of grid onto a large portion of skin and hook it up to two cameras filming the 180 you can't see. Then find a way to project the video material of the two cameras in a meaningful way. Now, if you can regulate the intesity with which the stimulators of the grid interact with your touching sense, there could be a possibility to get a black an white picture of the things that go on behind you.
Now, I don't know how Ciarciello can see, if he only tastes/sees/feels black and white or only 3 levels of light-intensity, but this could be a huge military technology, if training does not take long and does not mess up the soldiers brain.
The real problem I would see is that apparently the grid on Ciarciello's tounge does not "display" a very big angle in front of him, and that it could be confusing if the resolution is too high.
Also, the sensation of a normal shirt on your back might let you "see" crazy shapes, if you are accustomed to the back-vision. And there could be a problem with socking your back for a long time and with an intesity that reaches the sensory nerves. But the solution to that could be to use pressure instead of electricity, I even heard from a vest that you could put on to simulate being shot for a video game. While that might not be as finely tunes and high resolution as is necessary to "see", it could be a starting point for the technology.
I would like to meet him. This might be a nice opportunity for me to test whether my sour smile actually works.
Ezekiel 23:20
Oh, I think you have something in your teeth, let me take a look. Ohh and I love your necklace. Wonderful skirt. You are such a snappy dresser!
This guy wouldn't last 5 minutes in a strip club.
My mother spent her entire career teaching disabled children. One of her jobs was teaching children who were totally deaf and blind. These children had no trouble navigating out of the school, to the shop and the local park. They knew every step.
One time a child was put in a taxi to go home and the driver got the destination wrong. As soon as he went off the route his passenger told him he was going the wrong way.
Even if your ears don't work at all every nerve in your body can detect vibration, and process it as sound to some extent. Your skin can feel strong light and the temperature of the air. Your sense of balance tells you the lay of the land. Touching a person can tell you a lot about how they feel. And so on.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The blind gynecologists of the world rejoice!
The blind proctologists can't be reached for comment, but rumor has it they are indisposed due to a sudden onset of nausea.
He weeps, for he has but one small tongue with which to taste^H^H^H^H^H see an entire world.
This device probably derives from an ongoing study at the University of Wisconsin. In this study the researchers discovered that after several weeks of using the device, the information it was providing would begin to be processed by the visual cortex, confirmed by actual measurement of brain activity. So as ircmaxell and Ungrounded Lightning noted, there is solid evidence that somehow the human brain is able to reroute connections to ensure that sensory input is processed properly. I wish I could cite a scholarly source for this but my source is my sister-in-law who is an occupational therapist that participated in the research.
Oh bah it just means he needs very large tongue glasses.
A soldier who was blinded by a rocket propelled grenade in Iraq three years ago has been fitted with a device that allows him to "see" with his tongue, enabling him to visualise shapes, read words and walk unaided.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
How is that not on topic... and in fact the only comment really on topic here??
The whole point of that camera/tongue device is gone, when we prevent pointless shit like this in the first place.
Like the point of every symptom treatment in medicine is gone, when we fix the problem in a preventive manner.
But I guess you (the moderators) still think that painkillers fix headache, and antipyretics are the silver bullet to “heal“ your fever (fever itself being a side-effect of healing, and antipyretics slowing down that healing). Instead of actually fixing what will cause it again and again in the future, if not prevented.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
What's the possibility of being able to read with it?
I saw a TV report on this and it showd him "reading" the word CAT in 4" high black on white letters.
Really quite amazing, but similar in a way to Braille.
simon
The science behind it has a name and this article is a good intro to it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity
It also works with hearing. My mother has an implant which transformed her from almost deaf to... Well, in some cases she's got cyborg super-hearing because the microphones are sometimes rather high-tech. Details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant
Personally I'm waiting for a cyborg Ethernet adapter, since I don't think abstract information is any hindrance for neuroplasticity. With the head gear already in use for simple games it could be the first step into the Johnny Mnemonic augmented reality.
Maybe we can one day hook children up to a neural trainer to let them learn all the school stuff in a year, so that they can spend their valuable time doing something much more important; playing.
All rites reversed 2010
The system actually enables him to walk and read unaided.
Granted, at the moment I'm sure they mean stuff like signs. Once it's upgraded to 4,000 points though I would imagine reading larger print books would be no problem.
Porquoi?
The choclea evolved from the lateral line of the fishes, coiling up to fit inside the head and modifying the wave path so what used to map into direction now maps into pitch.
Perhaps that might be reverse engineered so we can generate a sound that produces the original "fish acoustic vision" sensation of directionality and intensity for impulse noise ("something is twitching THERE").
(And perhaps that's what the "sounds like modem tones, maps into vision" thing mentioned earlier is up to?)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.