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Science Technology

Artificial Vision for the Blind 188

Posted by michael from the amazing-grace dept.
castanaveras writes "Canadian doctors implanted an artificial eye into a blind man - it performs well enough for him to be able to drive (admittedly in an empty parking lot)." We've done lots of previous stories about bionic eyes.
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Artificial Vision for the Blind More

Artificial Vision for the Blind

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  • Glass Eyes (Score:4, Funny)

    by howman ( 170527 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @12:54PM (#3711429)
    Now that they can replace your glass eye with one that actually lets you see, I guess my novelty glass eyes won't do so well... It would have been nice to see them go into production, the magic 8 ball eye, the screen saver eye, and the flashing 12:00 eye... I wonder how long it will be before someone works out how to advirtise directly to your brain by hacking your eyes... gives whole new meaning to feed my eyes doesn't it.
    • AOL will probably market "AOL Eyes'. At only 1.5x the cost, you get "special product offers" exclusively available to AOL Eyes users. Each eye will have a seperate, full screen window inside of an mdi interface with no tasklist. It will crash whenever you turn your head too fast, and it will take your brain down with it.

      So easy to see, no wonder its #1 among the morons of the world.
    • You should try reading a part of Stephenson's Diamond Age, where such a phenomenon is actually descibed. Though the person who had his eyed 'hacked' by a taiwaneese firm eventually killed himself.

  • canadian doctors? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Barbarian ( 9467 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @12:58PM (#3711444)
    Actually it was done in Portugal to get around local regulations...

  • No Canadian Doctors (Score:4, Informative)

    by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @12:59PM (#3711448)
    They weren't Canadian doctors. They were doctors from the university of St. Louis doing the procedure on a Canadian man.
    • I live in Kingston. I'm here now.

      I wonder if I met this guy, I've been to some blind functions (had a blind girlfriend some years ago).

  • Still... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Devil's BSD ( 562630 )
    The nerve connections can never regrow completely, meaning the sight can never be as good as yours or mine (on second thought, I have -7 diopter lenses...). I don't even think the guy can move his eyes around. The true victory will come when when we manage to reattach nerve connections completely, because then we can repair spinal cord injuries and the like.

    Oh, and the million dollar man references are all lies: The procedure, hospitalization and equipment cost about $98,000 US..

    • Well, I haven't checked today, but that could be 6 million Canadian dollars.
    • With any luck it won't be long before we can regrow nerve connections, maybe using stem cells. The old meme that nerve cells were so inherently different they couldn't be regrown has been shown to be false in any number of particular circumstances (heck, the nerves in your olfactory bulb regrow every few months!).
    • "Oh, and the million dollar man references are all lies: The procedure, hospitalization and equipment cost about $98,000 US.. "

      What are you talking about? 98 grand was about 6 million then. Didn't you watch Austin Powers?

    • Re:Still... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @04:30PM (#3712007) Homepage Journal
      "The true victory will come when when we manage to reattach nerve connections completely, because then we can repair spinal cord injuries and the like. "

      Agreed. However, there are some hopeful alternatives. The brain has some very powerful processing capabilities. I don't remember where I read it, but recently I ran across a story where they were sending signals to the part of the brain that processes sound. Using sound, the patient was able to create a crude image of basic solid shapes. This isn't sight, but this person was able to recognize the dresser in her bedroom.

      I can imagine that they'll find inventive ways to send some sort of signal to the brain, and it'll make use of the information it's getting. Heck, we may see a VISOR like Geordi LaForge weas. Imagine sight via RF signals...

  • Makes me wonder (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sarin ( 112173 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @01:06PM (#3711476) Homepage Journal
    In order to go to sleep, does the man needs to turn his artificial eye "off"?
    • Stand by screen saver by M$.

    • Re:Makes me wonder (Score:1, Insightful)

      by samoverton ( 253101 )
      Just because he was blind before doesn't mean that he doesn't have eyelids.

      • From the article.
        Jens and the other patients wear special sunglasses fitted with a miniature TV camera. A microcomputer and stimulator are carried on the waist on a belt or in a bag. The equipment attaches by cable to a tiny fire hydrant-like device implanted in the skull that connects to two electrodes on the surface of the part of the brain that controls sight.

        someone needs to be slaped for not reading the article.
        and someone needs to be slaped for moding the post above post insightfull.
    • Well the article says that right now he is still getting his brain used to the input from the camera and is only having the camera on for one hour of the day.

      So I suppose turning it on and off is not a problem. ;)

  • Just to get it right. (Score:3, Informative)

    by sinistre ( 59027 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @01:07PM (#3711478) Homepage
    "Jens and the other patients wear special sunglasses fitted with a miniature TV camera. The equipment attaches by cable to a tiny fire hydrant-like device implanted in the skull that connects to two electrodes on the surface of the part of the brain that controls sight.

    In other words it connects to two electrodes on the surface of the visual cortex. Which is in the back of your skull. They have NOT implanted an artificial eye.
    • Really.

      Well.. what would you call something that takes video input and relays it to your visual cortex?

      I'd call it an eye.
    • I hope they try some experiments with this. Maybe place the camera on the back of the head, or array a large number of cameras around his body. See how the body reacts to unusual input data.
  • I just love these stories. It is a marvel of biotech and engineering. Maybe engineers have trouble picking up girls. Every day, in every other way, they make bigger and bigger difference.

  • Baseball umpires have a new option! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    These artificial eyes have lots of potential users that are currently employed as baseball umpires...

  • The ultimate eyeball (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mustang Matt ( 133426 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @01:14PM (#3711504)
    So if creativity was your only limitation, what would the ultimate artificial eyeball be capable of?

    I assume it would have huge amounts of optical zoom capability. Would it also have some sort of CCD showing so that you could change your eye "style" on demand?

    Maybe it could have a little hole in the middle of it setup to squirt "eye fluid" on people you don't like!
    • Gee, I want some with Terahertz imaging ability... see thru walls, clothes, etc.:)
    • X-ray Vision
      Re-fillable pepergas squirter
      LASER VISION
      Night Shot
      SUPER zoom
    • Programmable curve adjustment so as to be able to reduce glare and provide greater contrast. Controls suitable for passive night vision would also be handy.

      A programmable HUD overlay would also be interesting -- e.g. displaying motion vectors of significant objects, et al, or displaying ID information gained from recognizing people (e.g. contact information).

    • Re:The ultimate eyeball (Score:3, Interesting)

      by yog ( 19073 )
      The sky's the limit on capabilities.

      - Instant replay: probably a no-brainer (so to speak); add some memory and TIVO-type controls to the belt pack.

      - Human camera: throw away your still and video cameras. You will never need them again. Your vacations will be completely documented, as will everything else you do. Hmm; some things you might want to be able to delete, though.

      - zoom (optical and digital): as you described.

      - wireless capability: you could be a real time eyewitness reporter, or a human webcam.

      - filters: cut the brightness factor on a sunny day

      - night vision: add infrared capability. You'll see better than "sighted" people 24 hours a day. If you live alone, you'll never need lights in your home and can save on the electricity..

      - Direct PC interface: throw away your CRT/LCD screens; you can just jack straight into your computer's video output. I wonder if 3D capability is possible.

      - Remote sight: using a wireless connection, you could instantly cut over to cameras installed in your house to check on your kids, etc. You could have a remote control system to turn the camera's focus in any direction as you move your head or with a joystick. This would be handy for remote conferencing too.
      • I wonder if 3D capability is possible.

        Heck, that should be trivial. A slightly different POV into each visual stream, kind of like the way Ma Nature did it.

        (Sigh). Unfortunately, those of us who grew up with amblyopia (or just one eye, for that matter - monopia? Cyclopia?) don't have the visual processing capability even if you fix the eye.

        I've often wondered what stereoscopic vision is like...

    • dude, its all about:

      optical zoom

      digital magnification/enhancement

      flare compensation

      thermal imaging

      low-light imaging

      ultrasound vision (ala bats, for total darkness and lack of thermal)

      protective reflexive kevlar shutters

      HUD detailing gps and environmental information

      ability to take pictures of views

      internal storage for the pictures

      internal "eye dart" with some type of munition. (your choice, however if you use a bullet you hafta make a check against stress damage to the eye... er. woops. too much shadowrun for me..)

    • Remember: during development, the optic nerve is part of the brain itself, and the amount of circuitry inside the brain proper which is tuned for visual processing is immense. Getting individual pixels into the brain -- the current accomplishment -- is of course a technical acheivement. But processing it like sighted people do is a challenge of similar magnitude to brain transplants. On the other hand, it might be possible for those who've lost their vision. (But those blind since birth is another story entirely.)
    • For me, the ultimate eyeball would have the following features:

      1. Fast focussing. I want my eyes to adjust to light and dark quickly, and focus on an object near or far fast.

      2. Filters. Cut down glare during the day.

      3. Light enhancement at night. (I'd settle for green outlines like the army night-vis goggles gets)

      4. Enhanced depth-of-field. If you focus on something close to your eyes, everything far away gets blurry. I'd like to be able to see both near and far clearly at once. (That'd go along with #1 well, too)

      5. Zoom. At least 16x.

      6. Protective covering like goggles. So I could see underwater.

      7. Image enhancement to cut through fog or smoke.

      That's about it for now ;)
    • Anyone read Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card? One of the characters (Odaho, I think...) had a artifical eye that also recorded every thing he ever saw, he had to download it to a computer regularly though.
  • nokia hasn't started to implement this. With one of these
    suckers connected to your speech-centre maybe we would
    finally be free from those pesting cellphone addicted teens chattering
    in cinemas :p
  • There were no actual canadian doctors involved, only a canadian patient... But Canadians are also developping a visual implant similar to the one cited in the article... You can find more info here [polymtl.ca], or here (in french) [cybersciences.com]. (the last article is from 2001... wonder what is happening right now...)

  • Artificial eyes for the blind, artificial ears... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    for the deaf. Now all we need is artificial intelligence for the stupid!
  • I knew an eminent blind person and researcher at a university who was often called upon to comment on or even to test artificial vision equipment being developed at the university. His usual response was that nothing beats a good guide dog. This demoralised some folks at the university who were trying to develop and get funding for a guide robot for blind people. That latter project made the headlines when it was the subject of a hilarious cartoon in a BMVA Newsletter a few years ago entitled "Guide Dogs for Blind Robots" (no online copy found).

  • All you need... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Jace of Fuse! ( 72042 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @01:32PM (#3711561) Homepage
    Oh this is not really a big deal. Star Trek showed us years ago that you could make a blinde man see just by putting a hair-clip over the front of his face.

  • Actual site... (Score:3, Informative)

    by krichf1mp ( 533240 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @01:37PM (#3711581)
    ... http://www.artificialvision.com/vision/index.html has videos (mpeg) of the procedure and what the blind man can see (edge detect heh... good idea)
  • I really don't think this will be too useful except for the completely blind.

    Even then there are other factors, such as learning how to see when you didn't see before.

    On a side not, they said the same thing about Coucher implants and those are marginally useful only (they are limited in what they can do).
    • A handful of scientists have learned how to interpret speech by reading frequency spectragraphs. I was wondering if the deaf could not also do the same. A PalmPilot-like device could display the scrolling spectragraph, and deaf people could learn to read it.

      I agree that some people may have a hard time learning to read them, but it has been shown to be possible for at least some people. (True, they were not hearing impared, but many people are remarkable adaptable, especially if they are hightly motivated.)

    • Okay, I've got to ask. How do you use a computer if you're deaf and blind? Are you just 'legally blind' where you can still see, but have to have the resolution set to ENORMOUS and use a magnifying glass?

      I don't mean to be rude or anything, but I've always wondered how deaf-blind people manage to live their lives. It seems like it would be a nigh-impossible struggle to communicate at all.
  • Applying a current across the visual cortex creates patterns.

    Ho hum.

  • Not much new with Dobelle, but look at Eyetap (Score:4, Interesting)

    by McLuhanesque ( 176628 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @01:46PM (#3711611) Homepage
    ...this is actually nothing particularly special, since all the technologies are relatively well-known (among the right circles), and mostly invented by Dr. Steve Mann [eyetap.org] of the University of Toronto. According to Steve, what the patient actually perceives is more akin to contrast resolution, rather than anything that the visually unimpaired would call "sight".

    What is perhaps more interesting, and more widely useful is the Eyetap technology [eyetap.org] itself. Essentially, Eyetap uses the camera and wearble computer to drive a small laser that mediates reality directly into the eye. For people who are not blind, but profoundly visually impaired, this technology may be a godsend.

    Beam me up, Geordi LaForge!

  • False Hopes (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Warin ( 200873 )
    I think the most important part of the article was the bit about not giving false hopes to the many folks who have been blind since birth. Since they will not have developed the ability to interpret stimulii from that part of their brain, this device will do them no good.
    Properly marketed though, this device could do a lot for thos who have lost their sight from disease or accident.

    Hopefully as the technology develops and is refined, they will also look into researching ways for those blind from birth to use this technology as well.
  • I wonder what will happen when bionic eys (ears, limbs, memory) are better than your perfectly functioning ones. Will people upgrade themselves like they do now with implants and plastic surgery? It's closer to reality with these great technological advances, but are we ready for it in our culture?
    • You better believe I'd be willing to do it if it was offered to the general public. Heck, I'd probably even be willing to sign up as a test subject in order to compare the functionality of the artificial to what a normally functioning limb/organ/etc performed like.
    • I've little doubt it will happen eventually. It will probably be a while before such implants are available legally as cosmetic surgery, though.

      Even once artifical devices capable of functioning better than organic ones are available, they'll be nominally for people who really need them. Those who just Want the added functionality will either live without it or go to less inhibited countries and get it done in second-rate surgeries while hoping they avoid infection. Eventually someone will realize the revenue being lost that way and open it up further. And once the initial revulsion of society goes away (when previously handicapped people are wandering around with artificial parts and some sort of etiquitte is devised for asking, "Did you lose your arm, or is that on purpose?") they'll likely be as common as breast implants and facelifts.

      The real question is how will society change when such things are available? If we can all (or at least the rich) get bionic eyes that let us see across a broader band of the EM spectrum, what will the world look like? Sculptures made of mildly radioactive materials that glow when you turn your eyes to the right setting, lead-based paint in advertising and just general signage to make sure you can see it if you're functioning in X-ray mode. Heck, x-ray-absorbing clothing to keep peeping toms away... It'd be a heck of a thing. And that's just eyes.

  • My first slashdot response in ages :) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The OPTiCIAN ( 8190 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @02:00PM (#3711648)
    When I was yonger I used to wonder whether I had the choice of losing sight or hearing which would I chose. Sight is so important to us. Yet to lose hearing would be to sacrifice music, which is my main pursuit outside of work. Also, it would be less of a step down for me to lose sight than for many people. I was born with a deformed left eye. A strip down the middle of the retina is missing, and there's a separate, more complicated problem I've never bothered to learn about as well. I used to wear plastic-, then glass-eyes to mask it. The plastic ones were made oversized and have stretched the skin around the socket, and it became painful, but that just gave me the excuse I needed to give up wearing them altogethre. I feel proud to have a problem that isn't and not cover it up, and rarely think about it, and have friends and family completely forget about it.

    It's better to be born that way than to lose an eye for several reasons. Obviously, the pain and anguish of losing an eye. Also the need for people in that situation to redevelop their coordination. The only disadvantage is that if you don't develop parts of your sight while you are young - like me, you don't develop it at all. There will be a limit to which the brains of people given sight mid-life will be able to use them. Stereoscopic vision will be right out (even people with squints that come good can have problems with this, like my father), and they will never develop the coordination that somebody with childhood experience can.

    Still, developments like those in this story give you a warm feeling about the positive power of our scientific endeavours, and the benefits of progress.

    My former rowing coach is a dentist. Somehow years ago we got to talking about his work, and gross medical professions. Consensus among the squad was that optic surgerey was the right up there with the most squeemish of them, and he commented that in a way he wished he'd put his energy into that field rather than his own. When we asked why he responded that for the same amount of work you get to fix people's sight, and that that's one of the finest gifts you can give somebody.

    :)

  • Motivation Crisis: Depression after restored sight (Score:5, Informative)

    by RyanFenton ( 230700 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @02:03PM (#3711654)

    There's been a long-recognized phenomenon discovered among people who have sight restored after long periods of blindness: Motivation Crisis

    http://psych.wisc.edu/vision/courses/recovery.html [wisc.edu]

    http://216.239.35.100/search?q=cache:ZD8gWmH2aEYC: www.wfu.edu/Academic-departments/Art/art111/files/ 12_tosee.pdf+ [216.239.35.100]

    Notes on this phenomenon go back to at least 1771, with the publishing of the book "L'Aveugle Qui Refiise deVoir." By 1932, there was a book "Space and Sight" that concluded that "every newly sighted adult sooner or later comes to a 'motivation crisis', and that not every patient gets through it." Fortunately for this guy though, this problem seems to be more linked to people who lost their sight early, and then regained it much later, having to radically change their lives down to the tiniest mannerisms. It might have something to do with the time limitation they are putting on him, and the scientists choice of Jans, for his positive attitude.

    Definetly an interesting topic on human psychology though. Hopefully with future inventions along this line, no one will be forceably blind long enough for such depression to occur along these lines. It makes one wonder though - will more distant technology create a new sort of "Motivation Crisis" in us if perception enchancements become widely available and used.

    Ryan Fenton
    • I saw a documentary of a case study of this once. Apparently this kid lost his sight and hearing at a young age.

      He later became pinball champion of the world, but upon regaining his sight and hearing, he led a cult until they revolted against him, and he lost everything.

      I forget what the name of the documentary was.
    • This reminds me of the Wim Wenders film, "Until the End of the World." In it, a scientist has developed a means of allowing blind people to see, by directly recording the electrical impulses of a seeing person's brain, then transmitting them into the blind person's brain. He does this for his wife, who has been blind for most of her life. After he starts transmitting images of their children and friends to his wife, she has such a crisis, as described in this narration from the movie:
      "Edith Eisner had been 8 years old when she lost her sight. The experience of seeing the world again was exhilirating, but it was also confusing and disorientating, and unpredictably sad. Her childhood friends aged 50 years in a minute, but the world they lived in was darker and uglier than she could have possibly imagined."
      -d.r.
    • (* His high expectations of sight let him down, and in general he found the world dreary and depressing in all its imperfections. *)

      Imagine getting sight, and then seeing Linda Tripp. It could understandably drive one right back to blindness.

  • Is it permanent? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by atcurtis ( 191512 )
    I wonder how they have solved the problem of decomposition - the body's immune system is a powerful entity. Implant a silicon chip and the body will attack it and erode it. Implant it in a glass capsule and then how to make the electrical connections?

    These things have been reported several times in the past but each time, it degrades within months and typically doesn't last even 6 months in the body.

    So how "permanent" is this artificial eye? That is the question everyone wants answered. Does it require lots of external hardware to operate (as some older experiements have done). What kind of power source is required?

    • I didnt think the body could process silicon. And putting it in glass would be easy-just put the electrodes in the glass and then you could solder or do whatever. How the heck do you think they made vacuum tubes back in the heyday of ENIAC?

      • AFAIK, Silicon is a trace-element that we do use somewhere in our body. Even SiO2 can be eroded.

        I believe early eye implants used SiO2 but they only lasted on the order of weeks.

        The point being - how to make a reliable connection between the artifical electronic and the biological grey matter... which does not degrade.

    • Re:Power source (Score:4, Funny)

      by Leeji ( 521631 ) <slashdot.leeholmes@com> on Sunday June 16, 2002 @02:38PM (#3711765) Homepage
      Actually, AMD stock rose $1.50 on the news that they would provide cheap, onboard processors for visual implants.

      Patients' complaints about the heat will be drowned out by the scream of cooling fans.
  • The problem with advances like these is that everyone looks at them and thinks, "Oh, great stuff! Before long, we'll be able to let all the blind people see."

    Which may happen... or may not. But in the meantime, people see it as a little less important to make sure that the world is accessible to those who are disabled, when they're convinced that a 'cure' is right around the corner.

    Cochlear implants and bionic eyes and so on and so forth... they all sound terrific. And there will be people helped by these advances. Just don't let yourselves get caught expecting too much of them. And remember, programmers and designers out there, to make sure that your projects are accessible. Text needs to be readable by a screen-reader. Audio should have available captions. All that jazz.

  • This device bypasses some important areas (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Illserve ( 56215 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @02:29PM (#3711746)
    Don't get me wrong, I'm very impressed by this device, and I hope it works out.

    However, the visual cortex is not the end all-all be-all of visual information in the brain. Visual information on the way to this cortex is first passed through other areas of the brain, such as the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus, which process the information, and also allow it to interact with other brain areas.

    Based on my knowledge of the intricate, piecemeal nature of brain design, these pre-processing areas are probably involved in some fairly important low-level, reflexive aspects of vision. Bypassing them may restore the conscious aspects of vision and allow a great deal of function, but will miss out on some other aspects of vision that we are not consciously aware of.

    Repairing the optic nerve is the only way to get real vision.

    But that's step #1000, kudos to these pioneers for having the courage and ability to do step #10.
    • I agree with most of what you say - however, repairing the optic nerve is not the *only* way to get real vision. Another way would be to reproduce retinal and LGN processing in silicon, and use that to drive stimulation of the primary visual cortex. Not that they do that in the study mentioned, but they should start, since a bit of preprocessing could increase the quality of the vision substantially, I suspect.

      I don't think that this approach is as good as either (a) stimulating the optic nerve, (b) stimulating the retina, or (c) repairing the optic nerve/retina, if those can be done, but presumably they can't be done in all circumstances. Also, unless someone comes up with decent trascutaneous wireless transmission and a way to power an autonomous device, it is going to have to have a chronic (permanent) interface through the skull and skin. This is going to be a long-term nightmare in terms of infection (and the results of infection to the brain are *real* nasty), and would never fly commercially for lawsuit reasons.
      • I should have made the point clearer.

        It's not just that the LGN does some preprocessing, it's that the visual information heading to the visual cortex also goes to other places as well. Skipping the optic pathway will ignore these other projections, leading to incomplete visual processing even if you perfectly replicate the signal the visual cortex expects to receive.
  • Mother: "Junior, what were you doing at your girlfriend's house last night??"
    (18-year old) Junior: "Um... nothing mom!!! *turns red, obviously hiding something*"
    Mother: "Junior, plug in your eye now, let me see!!"

    --pi

  • Ascii Porn is now usefull again! (Score:3, Funny)

    by zulux ( 112259 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @02:39PM (#3711771) Homepage Journal
    Regular porn is probably too small, so
    I imagine the Canadian gentleman can now print out ASCII porn for his viewing pleasure.
  • ....If eventually these artificial eyes will get so good that people with good eye sight will start having their eyes replaced.
  • God, I guess if I were blind, I'd want to get this too, but that "beep beep beep" noise it makes every time you use it would drive me nuts. I don't know how Steve Austin dealt with it!

    :-)
  • It appears that this device sees visual specectrum waves, but couldn't it work just as well with other frequencies? The hard part was hooking it up to the guy's brain, and it appears they got that to work. It shouldn't be any issue at all to substitute a more sophisticated camera. Doing so could allow them to make a spread spectrum version, that would allow the "blind" guy to see visual waves usually, and infrared during the night/fog/etc. They could even see through buildings. [slashdot.org]
  • Personally I think it's just a matter of time before electrical stimulators will replace the long cane, Braille and guide dog," Dobelle said. "It will be a gradual process. It could take the rest of the centuru

    I'm sickened by how so called normal people think visially immparead and deaf people are sop,me incapable freaks who want to turen themselves into sickrobot like creatures just so they can "enjoy" questiohnable civilisation advnaces (like polluting the world in you private car?) The Blind have a very rich and well developed culture based Braille and they are not about to reject it. BTw, according to statisics most ppl who were born blind wouldnt want the 5th sesnes artificially implanted into them.
    Stop the gencide now.
    • I have to agree.

      I myself am legally deaf-blind.

      To ber truthful, in any case these devices are only marginally helpful anyway at this stage.

      However, later may be a problem. For example I'm strongly opposed to forcing the deaf to use English for everything instead of sign language.
    • this device is for people who are interested in having it and that can afford it. no one is trying to force it on anyone. i know if i went blind i would pray for my vision to come back. this device may answer the prayers of some people that think the same way. For people who are happy with braile, let them be happy with braile. No one is trying to force this upon anyone.
  • After all these years since I lost my vision, I can finally play pool! Now all I have to do is get this system, that system [slashdot.org], and one of those goggles that let old ladies wear sunglasses while they read. I'll be so popular!
  • Give a big enough empty parking lot and a blind man can drive WITHOUT an operation!
    • Yeah, hasn't anyone seen Sneakers?

      There's a sceen where the blind character drives a van through a parking lot with direction via radio from someone out of the van. He crashes through a couple cars, but... (it's really funny)
  • The article states that the patient lost his sight 20 years ago, but before that, could see just fine.

    "The device doesn't work for all types of blindness. People who were blind from birth, or who lost their vision in childhood are not expected to benefit because their visual cortexes would not have developed fully, Smith said."

    Suppose this wasn't the case, and you could give sight to somebody who had never seen before. Would their brains be able to interpret the flow of new information?

    Here's the argument for...

    1. Peter Parker seems to be able to use his spider sense quite well.
    2. Jedi use their feeling of the force, a sense which most do not posses (but then again it does take years of training).

    Any thoughts?

    • Here's the argument for...

      Peter Parker seems to be able to use his spider sense quite well.
      Jedi use their feeling of the force, a sense which most do not posses (but then again it does take years of training).


      That's a lousy argument, seeing that both spiderman and Jedi ARE NOT REAL.

      Again, I'll try to implant a small sense of reality into your head :
      Peter Parker can use is spider-sense well because he's NOT REAL
      Jedi use their feeling of force ok because they are NOT REAL

      Ok, then back to the argument.

      I'd guess that it would take the same amount of time to adapt to this system as it would for children to develop their visual cortex, so what, 10 years? Depending upon how flexible your brain is at learning strange new things.
  • His first worsds after getting the implant of his new eye turned on "I am married to YOU!?!?!"
    .

  • Uh oh.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @04:33PM (#3712013) Homepage Journal
    Just imagine, if he goes to the theater, he'll be violating the DMCA.

  • DRM (Score:2)

    by GutBomb ( 541585 )
    I am suprised that RIAA or MPAA has not attempted to integrate Digital Rights Management software into this thing. That would plug the analog hole for sure
  • having lived with a blind mother all of my life, and realizing that blind people travel in packs (ha! i made a funny!), i ran this by them... the one response that i heard repeatedly, from both those who had been blind from birth and those who had lost it at some point in their lives, was that they would honestly prefer to remain blind. some said that they would appreciate partial sight (the ability to discern shapes, etc.), but that full sight would be too much for them to deal with. i argued that with proper therapy they could get used to having their sight back, but they stuck to their guns.

    on a side note (at the risk of being rated down), is anyone in the slashdot community actively and consciously creating accessible websites [cast.org]? at this point in artificial vision technology, no one has yet to create a widely accepted, usable solution. there are too many diseases, too many causes of blindness to deal with to see a fix-all solution come about... so the best solution is to either ensure that a site is accessible, or design an accessible alternative site. you would be surprised at the number of blind people who are online these days. my little brothers and my father are always complaining that my mother is using up their broadband bandwidth at home with her usage.

    at any rate, it's something to consider.

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