The laser-powered bionic eye that gives 576-pixel grayscale vision to the blind

[4me2]

The laser-powered bionic eye that gives 576-pixel grayscale vision to the blind




After a lot of theorizing, postulating, and non-human trials, it looks like bionic eye implants are finally hitting the market — first in Europe, and hopefully soon in the US. These implants can restore sight to completely blind patients — though only if the blindness is caused by a faulty retina, as in macular degeneration (which millions of old people suffer from), diabetic retinopathy, or other degenerative eye diseases.

The first of these implants, Argus II developed by Second Sight, is already available in Europe. For around $115,000, you get a 4-hour operation to install an antenna behind your eye, and a special pair of camera-equipped glasses that send signals to the antenna. The antenna is wired into your retina with around 60 electrodes, creating the equivalent of a 60-pixel display for your brain to interpret. The first users of the Argus II bionic eye report that they can see rough shapes and track the movement of objects, and slowly read large writing.
The second bionic eye implant, the Bio-Retina developed by Nano Retina, is a whole lot more exciting. The Bio-Retina costs less — around the $60,000 mark — and instead of an external camera, the vision-restoring sensor is actually placed inside the eye, on top of the retina. The operation only takes 30 minutes and can be performed under local anesthetic.



The Bio-Retina bionic eye implant. Image credit: PopSci




Basically, with macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy, the light-sensitive rods and cones in your retina stop working. The Bio-Retina plops a 24×24-resolution (576-pixel!) sensor right on top of your damaged retina, and 576 electrodes on the back of the sensor implant themselves into the optic nerve. An embedded image processor converts the data from each of the pixels into electrical pulses that are coded in such a way that the brain can perceive different levels of grayscale. The best bit, though, is how the the sensor is powered. The Bio-Retina system comes with a standard pair of corrective lenses that are modified so that they can fire a near-infrared laser beam through your iris to the sensor at the back of your eye. On the sensor there is a photovoltaic cell that produces up to three milliwatts — not a lot, but more than enough. The infrared laser is invisible and harmless. To see the Bio-Retina system in action, watch the demo video embedded below.
Human trials of Bio-Retina are slated to begin in 2013 — but like Second Sight, US approval could be a long time coming. It’s easy enough to hop on a plane and visit one of the European clinics offering bionic eye implants, though. Moving forward, multiple research groups are working on bionic eyes with even more electrodes, and thus higher resolution, but there doesn’t seem to be any progress on sensors or encoder chips that can create a color image. A lot of work is being done on understanding how the retina, optic nerve, and brain process and perceive images — so who knows what the future might hold.




http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/1...n-to-the-blind

[Raptor]

thats pretty awesome

sci-fi indeed

[grrrd]

Is it me or after watching that video it reminds me of nearly all 80's sci-fi movie, where the latest invention turns out to go horribly wrong. all that video did for me was remind me of Total Recall!

[{{909}}]

fucking crazy shit.

[BigBrand]

Immense, technology rocks!!

[{{909}}]

Is it me or after watching that video it reminds me of nearly all 80's sci-fi movie, where the latest invention turns out to go horribly wrong. all that video did for me was remind me of Total Recall!

the worst things that could happen are in-eye advertising, or google will find a way to 'accidentally' track everything you look at.

[tronads]

I heard about this on radio 5 a month or so ago, its brilliant. They were saying that people who had been completely blind had been able to read large text. It's only for certain types of blindness, as the article says, but the likes of this gives hope to people like a friend of mine who now in his late 30's is almost 99% blind.

[Mule]

I wonder if these are like digital camera sensors and the resolution will double each year.

[matthewy2]

Its good to see shit like this coming out. I damaged my retina playing football last season.

Im on the verge of being blind in 1 eye so I'm shit scared of anything happening to the other.

Id pay silly money for my full eye sight back

[DejaVu]

If you've been blind all your life, would you honestly have this done?
They are so used to 'living in the dark' this would come as a scary prospect to see all of sudden, even if it is just gray-scale!

I know someone who's blind and had this discussion with him before (would he like to see), he is comfortable as he is, the rest of his senses are heightened especially his hearing and being able to see would through him out of his daily routine completely.

But I guess it's one of those things you have to teach yourself to use from scratch.

[CallmeGoose]

it would be good if these had wifi streaming. beam porn right into your mind without the missus knowing!

on a serious note though. i cant wait to see the day where they announce the perfect robotic eye, equal to, if not better than the human eye. cant be 'too' far off...