DoE-Sponsored Project Readies Human Trial For Artificial Retinas 82
An anonymous reader writes "'The blind will see again,' could be the motto of the Artificial Retina Project, which is getting ready to implant a 60-pixel artificial retina chip into 10 blind patients later this year. 60-pixels doesn't sound like much, but the 1st gen artificial retina brought tears to the eyes of its six recipients, who claim they can now count large objects with just 16-pixels. If all goes well, a 200-pixel retina will be ready in three years; the chip used is of a 1.2-micron CMOS process, with both power and video supplied wirelessly." (And this is sponsored by the Department of Energy for what reason?)
In other news, (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In other news, (Score:5, Insightful)
+1 for perfect refrence
i was thinking the same thing when i read that
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i know - i just don't have any mod points.. so i give the best version of them i had at the time
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> 60-pixels doesn't sound like much, but the 1st gen artificial retina brought
> tears to the eyes of its six recipients, who claim they can now count large
> objects with just 16-pixels. If all goes well, a 200-pixel retina will be
> ready in three years
Like all the new technologies, it'll be rapidly driven by pr0n!
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Ummm, you misspelled the word reference. It has 4 e's in it :P
Hey, look everybody a Spelling Nazi that had the balls to post non-anonymously! :)
BTW: I was actually thinking of a blind guy sitting on a bench grabbing the air in front of him with a goofy smile on his face.
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Isn't "anonymously" already a negation composed as an- (without) onymus (name, latin from greek "onoma") -ly (having the qualities of).
So the negation would be "onymously".
How's that for language trolling :)
Actually, English is supposed to be a fun language (since modern leyman's English is mostly created by poets), so ananonymously would also be correct as was your non-anonmyously :) I'm just playing with ya.
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If you do not see the possible good (crazy awesome!) implications of this, then you are, indeed, blind to progress.
Hacked (Score:1)
Still a long way from sci-fi (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Still a long way from sci-fi (Score:5, Funny)
Even MIT's newer wearable computer enthusiasts are more attractive.
Why on earth would anyone want to wear a computer enthusiast? Is this some extreme form of on-demand tech support? Also, I'm highly skeptical of the claim that computer enthusiasts coming out of MIT, no matter how new, are attractive.
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Really? How about this young woman? http://coop.jsc.nasa.gov/biography/jordann.html [nasa.gov]
Or these ladies? http://web.mit.edu/madmatt/Public/Pics/cheerbig.jpg [mit.edu]
Or if you like a little controversy with your sexy, how about one of the most gifted (and hot) young computer enthusiasts I know - http://bea.st/sight/archive/08/05/star/ [bea.st]
Re:Still a long way from sci-fi (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't care how geeky I look, if I lose my eyesight I'll wear whatever is required to see again.
Re:Still a long way from sci-fi (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't care how geeky I look, if I lose my eyesight I'll wear whatever is required to see again.
On a serious note, I completely agree, yet at the same time would be very leery of doing so. The main reason? Upgrade paths. They've got a 60-pixel retina they're trying now. Much better than being blind, but much worse than the next gen which will have 4,000 pixels, then there'll be a 64k pixel one, and then the multi-megapixel eyes after that. And then they'll come out with one that not only approximates full human vision, but gives you Geordi LaForge-like super-vision as well. But alas, I can't get that one, because the upgrade to the 64k pixel eye required splicing directly into my optic nerve and now they don't have enough to work with.
So basically I wouldn't be completely comfortable with it until it reached the nearly-normal stage (and I'll just live without the super-vision upgrade), but realistically, it very well may not be at that point when I actually need it. This would make an otherwise no-brainer (see vs not see) a lot tougher.
Not that I'm complaining. This is fantastic news.
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Re:Still a long way from sci-fi (Score:4, Funny)
You could always do one eye at a time :)
Oh yeah smarty pants?
Ok, so you get your first generation 60 pixels, and you get your second generation unit, and your third generation unit, but then what the hell do you do about the fourth generation unit then? Huh? Huh smarty pants?
Re:Still a long way from sci-fi (Score:5, Funny)
.: )
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+(funniest thing this year) (Score:2)
That is the funniest thing I've read all day. However, I don't think that you see where this is going:
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I don't think that you see where this is going
I'm not blind to the possibilities.
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Look, don't try to out-weird me, three-eyes. I've eaten stranger things than you for breakfast.
I LOL'd at your post. Just thought you should know.
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If you lose your eyesight, the "vision centers" in your brain will begin to atrophy, and you'll lose the mental capacity to process images.
Best to "exercise" those areas as much as possible. Once those nerves die, they're gone for good. Figure out how to grow those back, and you'll nearly have achieved the holy grail of medicine.
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Until you live without vision, I think it's difficult to state how you'd really feel about that.
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No, it's not difficult at all to say that I would not be completely comfortable with a partial eye replacement, and that it would be a difficult decision to commit to any particular type of implant.
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If you start going for that carrot they are only going to let you have a taste of it anyway, never the whole thing.
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I doubt there's enough optic nerve to process a multi megapixel image. The eye works by sweeping a relatively small sensitive area over the scene, not by taking it all in at full resolution at once. A few thousand closely spaced pixels may well be pretty close to "normal."
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Well, the image sensor itself would have to have millions and millions of pixels, just like our eyes have millions and millions of receptors. However what you're saying implies is that it may be possible to have a connector to the optic nerve capable of saturating its bandwidth, and then you could plug in "eyes" of various resolution with the data time multiplexed.
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You really think it would be any more geeky than the bluetooth phones people wear on their ears all the time?
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DOE (Score:5, Insightful)
For the same reason the Department of Commerce is responsible for our atomic clocks?
Seriously though, the DOC, DOE, etc., each have a variety of national labs, each of which have many areas of research. I'd suppose the DOE's expertise in high-reliability sensors (for light and all other wavelengths of radiation) is one reason why they mesh well with this project.
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And this is sponsored by the Department of Energy for what reason?
Well duhhhhh....
The Slashdot blurb says with both power and video supplied wirelessly.
It's high technomalogical beaming-energy-through-space thingymadoodle.
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Standard weights and measures are vital for commerce. It's logical that the Department of Commerce is responsible for our official measurements of time.
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For the same reason the Department of Commerce is responsible for our atomic clocks?
Actually, NIST takes care of all of that stuff.
Even the staunchest small-government conservative should be able to readily admit that a country as large as the US needs an organization like NIST to keep weights and measures standardized.
As far as I know, they do a pretty good job of it too.
(Oh, and lots of research falls under the DoE, because they have lots of money, due to the fact that their core mission is quite important, and because they're the most "famous" of the federally-funded science agencies, w
Amazing (Score:1)
One person who could really have used this (Score:5, Interesting)
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Stranger: So you worked at JPL?
You: Yes.
Stranger: What did you do there?
You: I was a seeing eye dog...
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No! I was a seeing eye person! Dan didn't need me to lead him around, he still had enough sight for that. He needed me to read monitors, type, and do other things that needed sharp sight.
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Doesn't exactly seem like the most glamorous lab job, but the potential for learning seems amazing.
"So, what did you do after college?
"I personally helped a genius for two years."
Heck, even if he told you to not ask questions, you could probably absorb a surprising amount just being close by.
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Dan would never have done that. He was always willing to explain, and even take suggestions. And yes, I did learn a lot about good programming from him. We were working on a subroutine package for others to use. In it, he used a number of functions and subroutines he created with five or six arguments, and never had trouble keeping them in the right order. This is because he had a patter
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Retinitis Pigmentosa (Score:1, Interesting)
I may have inherited a form of Retinitis Pigmentosa. I am color blind to certain shades of red & green (they look brown or orange or multiple shades of red/green/brown), which can be an indicator of inheritance of the retinal degenerative disorder. I may need bionic eyes (with eye beams, hopefully) when I'm 40 to 60 years old.
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A little late, I know, but just to be clear: my grandfather has RP as does his brother, so I may inherit the gene through my mother (color blindness is a marker for also having the genetic defect if it runs in your family [both grandpa and great uncle were color blind before developing RP, my great uncle actually started going blind in his 20s, my grandpa's eyes degenerated much later in life]).
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Why the DOE? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, in a more snide retort: (And this is sponsored by the Department of Energy for what reason?)
Because the US Department of Fucked Up Eyeballs was out to lunch the day of the planning meeting.
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You're a troll! So tell me why is the DOE sponsoring this? Why does every agency in our government have to do things in the areas where there are already government agencies which should be doing it.
To me it's more like a volley ball game where all of the players are to busy playing their team members positions to mind their own position.
I can't imagine that the DOE doesn't have enough Energy related issues at hand to keep them plenty busy w/o loosing focus on the blind (pun only half intended).
16 pixels? 60 pixels? What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Forgive me for asking, but even simple webcams are now 0.3 megapixels... so why are these artificial retinas so low on the pixel count?
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Re:16 pixels? 60 pixels? What? (Score:4, Informative)
its 16 neural brain connections, not necessarily 16 pixel camera.
Re:16 pixels? 60 pixels? What? (Score:4, Informative)
My guess is because of the difficulty in connecting 300,000+ (how exactly is color encoded for the brain?) wires/electrodes to the optical nerve (or directly to the brain?) accurately in a confined space.
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You know, it would be really great if /. armchair scientists were really in an armchair watching science reports like it was a football game. Then you could see how ridiculous you're being:
Announcer: Dr. Hausinsphincter steps back, takes the chip, and inserts it into the eye of the patient.
Announcer #2: That's an equivalent 60 pixel chip I believe he's trying there Bob. /. Know It All: 60 pixels! Awww what? Come on Hausinsphincter grow a pair! That's fucking rediculous! Get some of those stem cell's in
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My guess is because of the difficulty in connecting 300,000+ (how exactly is color encoded for the brain?) wires/electrodes to the optical nerve (or directly to the brain?) accurately in a confined space.
Parallel cables suxorz!
Firewire is da bombz!
Apple rulzxors!
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Which DOE? (Score:3, Funny)
DoE (Score:1)
Because the devices are Nuclear Powered
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They are wind powered. Didn't you see the propeller hat?
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Now that you mention it, that's not a bad idea... [chestjournal.org]
There's no cure for blindness (Score:4, Funny)
I for one welcome our cyborg overlords!
artificial retina brought tears to the eyes of 6.. (Score:3, Funny)
...thereby causing a short circuit in their newly implanted retinas.
Moores law.. (Score:2)
Am I missing something, or is true to say that now the only barrier to perfect (or better) vision restoration is moore's law?
Or in other words, approximately every 18 months, artificial vision will double in quality?
Ok, I guess the other limitation is FDA approval on each generation..
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Or in other words, approximately every 18 months, artificial vision will double in quality?
Not quite.
The artificial retina has an array of electrodes that stimulates optic nerve cells, sending an image to the brain's vision centers. The plasticity of the brain's vision processing capabilities enable it to adapt to the artificially generated signals.
You get higher resolution up to a point where your brain input maxes out.
But, what you MIGHT get as a bonus are things like infra-red vision, zoom-vision or data input.
You are getting a piece of wiring installed in your head - why not make the most of it?
Just think of the military applications. :D
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Why not just make use of the more efficient input you've already got? I believe we call it the "eye."
I've already got infra-red vision, zoom vision and data input, on a high bandwidth optical link.
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I've already got infra-red vision, zoom vision and data input, on a high bandwidth optical link.
You do? You then must be a robot from the future.
No, I don't know where John and Sarah Connor are.
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My video camera (with screen) has infrared, zoom, and if I point it (or my eyeball) at a computer screen I've got data input. All transferred into my brain via optical link with my natural retina.
What exactly do you think an infrared, zoom, etc., device would look like with an artificial retina? The only difference is how the data gets into the brain: via a natural retina evolved over a billion years to handle visual data efficiently or through some electrodes hooked up willy nilly to a part of the brain
What? No Star Trek references? (Score:2)
Nobody mentioned Geordi La Forge yet?
Infravision and ultravision (Score:1)
And how would you reboot your retina.... (Score:1)
if it locks up or crashes? via a sharp stick in the eye?
_Real_ news after it hits the _3rd_ generation (Score:2)
Darn glad I'm not blind because this would be a frustrating theme. It seems like a difficult technology scientists have been diddling with in the lab for several decades now. The really significant tidbit of this story is that they are hoping to submit the results of the generation _after_ this second generation for actual FDA approval. Finally, we can start to guesstimate a time line for this technology to make it to the patient population.
DoE because... (Score:1)