Posted on 02/16/2007 3:23:11 AM PST by Jedi Master Pikachu
| A bionic eye implant that could help restore the sight of millions of blind people could be available to patients within two years. US researchers have been given the go-ahead to implant the prototype device in 50 to 75 patients. The Argus II system uses a spectacle-mounted camera to feed visual information to electrodes in the eye.
Patients who tested less-advanced versions of the retinal implant were able to see light, shapes and movement. "What we are trying to do is take real-time images from a camera and convert them into tiny electrical pulses that would jump-start the otherwise blind eye and allow patients to see," said Professor Mark Humayan from the University of California. Wireless vision Retinal implants are able to partially able to restore the vision of people with particular forms of blindness caused by diseases such as macular degeneration or retinitis pigmentosa. About 1.5 million people worldwide have retinitis pigmentosa, and one in 10 people over the age of 55 have age-related macular degeneration. Both diseases cause the retinal cells which process light at the back of the eye to gradually die. The new devices work by implanting an array of tiny electrodes into the back of the retina. A camera is used to capture pictures, and a processing unit, about the size of a small handheld computer and worn on a belt, converts the visual information into electrical signals.
These are then wirelessly sent to a receiver just under the surface of the skin, which in turn feeds them to the electrodes. The whole process happens in real time. Growing dots First-generation, low-resolution devices have already been fitted to six patients. "The longest device has been in for five years," said Professor Humayan. "It's amazing, even with 16 pixels, or electrodes, how much our first six subjects have been able to do." Terry Byland, 58, from California was fitted with an implant in 2004 after going blind with retinitis pigmentosa in 1993. "At the beginning, it was like seeing assembled dots - now it's much more than that," he said.
"When I am walking along the street I can avoid low-hanging branches - I can see the edges of the branches." Mr Byland is also able to make out other shapes. "I can't recognise faces, but I can see them like a dark shadow," he said. Brain change The new implant has a higher resolution than the earlier devices, with 60 electrodes. It is also a lot smaller, about one square millimetre, which reduces the amount of surgery that needs to be done to implant the device. The technology has now been given the go-ahead by the US Food and Drug Administration to be used in an exploratory patient trial. This will take place at five centres across America over two years, with 50-75 patients aged over 50.
If successful, the device could be commercialised soon after, costing around $30,000 (£15,000). Other devices could then be developed with higher resolution or a wider field of view, said Professor Humayan. Future work includes studying the effects the implants have on the brain. "We are actually studying what happens to the visual cortex over time," said Professor Humayan. The research was presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in San Francisco, US.
By Jonathan Fildes Science and technology reporter, BBC News, San Francisco |
And then the government will demand to implant one of these in the eyes of anyone who is even remotely suspected of being a terrorist.
And then the warrantless wiretaps, so to speak...
NO cheers, unfortunately.
Most moms already come equipped with these.
Cheers!
But if you could look at your own brain, don't you think that would be kinda cool?
It's dark in there.
In more ways than one.
You will be assimilated.
Resistance is futile.
Sounds like the Dems.
*Plus the rims of the glasses can be seen at the edges of the field of vision, and the parts of the nose where the glasses' rubber things touch can get a bit sweaty.
Hmmm. My ex-wife is an ENT surgeon. She doesn't believe that the current state of surgical procedures is going to stay this way forever without improvement. Do you? Do you think we are as far advanced as we will ever be? That this is as far as human achievement makes it?
Come on.
The technology is decades away from providing what God gave you when you were born.
You sound like it's millions of years. Decades is not long at all. 30 years. Not more. Don't know how old you are but I plan to see it happen because it definitely will happen- and soon. One century is soon- think about it. But it will happen much sooner than that.
We are wired to use our senses as infants
Actually not. You are wired to make concsious use of only a very small portion of what your sensory arrays take in. Most processing goes on outside the sphere of consciousness. We are not wired to 'use our senses as infants'. We are only aware of a very small amount of what actually comes into and goes on in our minds at any given moment. Your thoughts are created for you in your unconcscious mind before you ever get the chance to concsiously think about them. The fact is, not a lot is known about the unconcsious/conscious interface. It would be better to say we are wired to make use of the flimsy, low band-width tool of concsiousness when we are infants. Sight is not merely visual input- it is interpretation.
When you use 'sight', you are not seeing the world as it is. Sight is what the unconcsious mind has made out of sensory input plus the modifications and adjustments (like depth perception, colour, white balance, presenting you with what you expect to see etc).
The mind is a very adaptive piece of equipment. Why are you able to interface with the monitor in front of you right now but would be unable to do so once the medium is one step closer to you? (although chimpanzees have already been wired to do this. Chimps are more capable than us- I don't think so.) Adding signal to the existing input would simply be processed by the unconcsious mind the same way any other new and unusual visual input would be. Your mind would adapt to it just fine and learn to use it without you even thinking about it- literally.
We are decades away from engineering simple things like artificial limbs with touch and position sense wired directly into severed limbs.
Again, no. Artificial limbs wired directly to the brain have already been created and are being tested on real humans and chimps as we speak. This is happening right now. Not decades from now.
With the steady progress in technology, it will in the end probably be supplanted by bio-engineering anyway.
I want infrared vision and an array of tools on the end of artificial arms that can do a number of things- not just biotech engineered artificial eyes that accomplish the same thing that nature does. What's the point in that? The military would be very interested in these things as well. There is enormous enormous potential for these things. That alone will ensure these things come into being.
Mark my words- we are just around the corner from having mobile phones built directly into our heads. If they can wire your brain to an artificial arm they can wire it to a Sony Playstation Controller- yes/no? Obviously yes. You can do quite a lot with a Playstation controller. With different combinations of menus, a mental/virtual controller (wirelessly connected to a processor externally) could be used to manipulate objects, keyboards, switches- all sorts of things. We create text messages on our phones now by having one thumb choose between about 15 tiny keys. The thumb is a clumsy implement but it works just fine. People do it without hardly thinking about it. Imagine taking the thumb out of the picture (and the phone too). With menus, keyboards, options overlaid on your vision and cursors controlled by your mind the same way the mind is controlling artificial arms right now as we speak- the possibilities would be astounding.
I think it will be a lot simpler to do this than most people realise. I think the mind is set up to handle this, it is set up to create this and it will want to have this once it becomes available safely and cheaply.
Yep. Pornstars will become the biggest celebs in the world.
And then the government will demand to implant one of these in the eyes of anyone who is even remotely suspected of being a terrorist.
LOL. There won't be anyone without these things once they hit the market. In 1998 almost nobody had mobile phones. Now, in less than ten years, almost everybody has a mobile phone. People want to be connected. The mind wants to be connected. You can say what you want but you are going out of your way to connect to me (and god knows who else) right now. You are plugged into a global network, you can be traced, the things you write here can be used by some other entity.
It's already that way. There will always be negatives to everything.
Why not this alternative: Rather than the government calling the shots- why wouldn't WE the People demand that all government officials have their devices turned to 'transmit to all' all the time? That way WE could keep track of what THEY do? I'd quite like that actually.
Something else to think about- this is probably a natural 'next step' for humanity. No getting around it. But, who says governments and nation states are going to be with us forever? I don't think they (nation/states & governments as we currently understand them) will last.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.