Photovoltaic Eye Implant Could Give Sight To the Blind 15
MikeChino writes with this snippet from Inhabitat: "Researchers at Stanford University recently announced that they have developed a new artificial retina implant that uses photovoltaic power and could help the blind see. The problem with previous implants was that there was no way send power to the chip in order to process light and data inside the eye, so the new device uses miniature photovoltaic cells to provide power the chip as well as to transmit data through the eye to the brain. The new device has great promise to help people afflicted by the loss of photoreceptor cells by using the power of the sun."
And to charge it, you... (Score:2)
This sounds really awesome. If my natural vision degenerates, I want the model with IR and UV sensitivity.
But I can see an endless loop condition developing:
10: "Don't look into the sun, you'll go blind!"
20: "AAAA I looked into the sun and I'm blind!"
30: "We've given you solar-powered retinal implants."
40: "Oops, my eye batteries are low, I'd better go..."
50: goto 20
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Inability to stare at the sun is a bug, not a feature. Since this eye will actually be DESIGNED, they should be able to leave it out.
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Inability to stare at the sun is a bug, not a feature. Since this eye will actually be DESIGNED, they should be able to leave it out
Agreed, but unless they replace the whole thing, it's just an upgrade. The magnifying-glass effect is an artifact of the original case design... even if the new retina can handle it, the legacy I/O port (aka optic nerve) might blow out.
Now, add some automatic cornea-side filtering and a new interface to the visual cortex, and you've got something. I could look forward to layi
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s/etc\./me cracking the protocol, and making you see Goatse all day long/ # ^^
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The good news is that we can restore your sight. The bad news is that do to security concerns we will need to place a mini-USB socket 2mm to the left of your iris... no no, you'll *hardly notice it, really!
Users may become significantly aware of mini-USB port in cases of leakage, corrosion, or static discharge. Please avoid areas near strong magnetic fields. Never fall asleep at Defcon or similar events. Notify your doctor immediately if a Windows Logo appears and persists in your field of vision.
so they will still be blind at night (Score:1)
Cool (Score:2)
But does it use Glitter [slashdot.org]?
Gives the old, often used adage of "glittering eyes" an entirely new dimension. Plus, think of what a hit it'd be at parties :)
SB
Cool, a hair-band around the eyes! (Score:1)
The only real drawback might be some engineers staring into the sun and going blin
how do you see in the dark? (Score:1)
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The eye certainly doesn't have any processors of any sort in there.
It has a detector and some wiring in to the brain.
wrong. the retina does a lot of quite useful processing on the image before sending quite high-level data to the brain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina#Spatial_Encoding [wikipedia.org]
there are lots of hard-to-explain cases where somebody can see perfectly; but can't detect movement, or where can't recognize the border between shapes, and therefore is unable to make sense of what sees, etc.
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