Need A New Retina? Look No Further 310
wap writes "Restoring sight to the blind is a Bibical miracle, a sign of divine powers. Now it is being tested at the Boston Retinal Implant Project, with some very limited success, according to Technology Review. They only have fifteen electrodes implanted, but it's a start. Great quotes: 'The eye doesn't like stuff inside it, that's why it doesn't have a zipper.' Will artificial eyes and retinal replacements someday be as good as good human eyes?"
As good??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Extended spectrum, nightvision, antiblinder, zoom, the possiblities are unlimited!
Re:As good??? (Score:5, Funny)
5 months later it'll be deemed that our eye sight can be tapped under the PATRIOT act and similar.
Re:As good??? (Score:2)
Nick
Re:As good??? (Score:5, Interesting)
I know with the iris they can measure the amount it constantly expands and contracts by to verify it's not a contact lens or similar. I presume though when they reach the stage of replacing the whole eye they'd be able to even fake that.
Re:As good??? (Score:5, Insightful)
5 months later it'll be deemed that our eye sight can be tapped under the PATRIOT act and similar.
printf("%s",szDeity) that should have been modded insightful. It actually makes me think of Minority Report, and how it's illegal not to have your own eyeballs. This sort of stuff will happen if we let it...
buying iSight eyes (Score:2)
/cyberpunk nerd
Need A New Retina? Look No Further (Score:3, Funny)
Re:As good??? (Score:2)
You mean DIGITAL zoom (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, though, without an extra lens how could it be anything but 'digital zoom' (i.e. 'magnification')?
On the other hand, most people nowadays appear to be dumb enough to buy anything so long as it is digital or contains the prefix i- or e-, so maybe we can just market these as "eYes : now with DIGITAL zoom."
Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom (Score:3, Insightful)
without an extra lens how could it be anything but 'digital zoom'
Easy, a higher resolution sensor. I'f you're looking at 1280x960 picture at 640x480 (50%), and you suddenly DIGITAL ZOOM to 1280x960, you didn't need a lense, and you weren't manufacturing new information. No one is saying that this will be ready next year, but in 50 year's time, it will definitely be possible.
Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom (Score:2)
Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom (Score:2)
Not really a zoom in my book.
By the way, don't tell digital camera companies or they'll start with a default image size of 30x40 pixels and a 100x 'optical sensor' zoom.
Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom (Score:2)
Missing Zoom function (Score:5, Funny)
Kryten: Well, just one or two. In fact I've compiled a little list if you'll indulge me. Now then, uh, my optical system doesn't appear to have a zoom function.
Lister: No, human eyes don't have a zoom.
Kryten: Well then, how do you bring a small object into sharp focus?
Lister: Well, you just move your head closer to the object.
Kryten: I see. Move your head
Lister: No. We don't have them.
Kryten: You don't have them -- just the zoom? Hmm. Well, no, that's fine, that's great, no, no, that's really great, that's great.
Sense of pride (Score:2)
That and changing the alert colour bulbs will forever tickle me...
*stiffle smirk*
Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom (Score:2)
nonetheless whole discussion there is actually interesting, and the subject is related.
Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom (Score:2)
Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom (Score:2)
Magnification is just the divergence of light so that it covers a larger surface area. Technology may at some point in the near future provide a way to bend/diverge light without lenses.
Re:You mean DIGITAL zoom (Score:2)
Re:As good??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:As good??? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, the nerves just after the retina, plus the optic nerve, plus the visual cortex, do a HELL of a lot of signal processing - removing the fixed imperfections like the blind spot and the blood vessels, using the dithering created by the small jittering of the eye to increase spatial resolution, averaging out the random phosphene activity.
IF you could get the same spatial resolution coupled into the retina, you could improve vision. However, that is a BIG IF - getting the millions of electrodes into the eye and coupled to the nerve cells, giving the correct voltage levels and firing patterns, without destroying the nerves by releasing metal ions or overvoltaging them, without provoking an immune response - quite a task.
Now, the question that I have is the plasticity of the brain - consider this: imagine the above difficulties are resolved. Now, instead of using a CCD array that approximates human normal vision by using RGB, what if you made an imaging element that generated RYGCBM - instead of three response curves you use six to increase the color-space resolution. Now, normally our brains learn to parse the basically RGBY data from the eye (the rods just return luminance data). Suddenly, the brain is getting a different set of signals. Is the adult brain plastic enough to learn to process this data at all? What about a child's brain?
Re:As good??? (Score:2, Funny)
Yes! That's a briliant idea! When the adult brain is not plastic enough, why not use children brains as a coprocessor? The only problem is where to leave it.. Perhaps artificially expand the skull to hold an extra smaller brain?
Re:As good??? (Score:2, Informative)
Adding another 3 colors would expand the edge handling required from 3 colors, and
Re:As good??? (Score:2, Informative)
On the other hand, the human eye has pretty good resolution in the point of best vision, something like an arc minute. At the same time, it offers motion detection over a rather large arc. This allows you to notice something happening at the edge of your field o
Re:As good??? (Score:2)
Re:As good??? (Score:2)
Human Augmentation (Score:5, Interesting)
I know it's a long way off, but that kind of visual enhancement would be awesome. And expensive. And I want it.
Example of overlay data (Score:5, Funny)
1) Serve the public trust
z2) Protect the innocent
3) Uphold the law
4) Secret
Re:Human Augmentation (Score:3, Informative)
FLABBBLALBBL (Score:3, Funny)
Re:FLABBBLALBBL (Score:2)
You people have spent to much time watching Star Wars prequels, you have forgotten what real science fiction is like.
More info (Score:5, Informative)
Brain implant [dobelle.com] anyone?
Where's Captain Cyborg? (Score:4, Funny)
15 electrodes implanted in someone's boday and not a sign of Kevin Warwick. Perhaps we'll get some actual research with scientific basis for a change.
Re:Where's Captain Cyborg? (Score:2)
I must be a Luddite... (Score:5, Interesting)
But I simply cannot imagine having any of this kind of enhancement: ever. I might consider it if say it was to restore something I'd lost completely (like my sight) but as an enhancement? No I don't think so. But then perhaps I'm a luddite: I haven't seriously considered laser eye surgery, partly because it's risky (however small) but mostly because my current eyeballs + glasses work just fine.
And as a humorous aside: how long do you think it would be before scumware companies worked out how to spam you new implants? "I ploughed into that part of school children because I was distracted by the advert for cheap viagra my retinaly implants I had just received".
Re:I must be a Luddite... (Score:2)
Then again, seeing the number of people willing to poke holes in themselves and stick metal objects through them purely for 'decoration', I fear I'm in the minority on this one.
Re:I must be a Luddite... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well thats sort of what they are for.
Thats like me saying I cannot imagine using crutches, ever, though I might consider them if I had broken my leg.
Leave it to /. to make research restoring sight to the blind an issue primarily about turning human beings into a race of cyborgs.
Re:I must be a Luddite... (Score:2)
Re:I must be a Luddite... (Score:2)
You're already enhancing yourself then! Seriously though, I think in 200 years when people are born, you will automatically get enhanced vision, extra memory/processors, maybe a super strong titanium exo-skeleton. Living without these things 200 years from now would be like trying to live now without electricity.
Re:I must be a Luddite... (Score:2)
Actually you know: I doubt that will be true.
I think what will work against it is the same repulsion people feel for the disabled, the deformed and the just plain different. (All of which are there to ensure you mate with a partner whose likely to give you strong, healthy and succesful offspring.)
I think the same will apply to implants and a mere 200 years won't be enough to overturn a several million years of evolution: we've evolved to be turned off by freaks.
Re:I must be a Luddite... (Score:3, Insightful)
So it matters a lot just what implant and why.
FWIW, I'm one of many who finds a stylish pair of eyeglasses can greatly enhance the sexual attractiveness of the wearer. Not strictly an implant, but there you go.
"Common sense" health modification - not (Score:5, Insightful)
Common sense isn't. Circumcision is not only unecessary, but risky and detrimental to one's health.
The only reason to circumcise is religous - there is no medical reason, and there are good medical reasons not to.
There is no extra care required to be uncircumcised - basically, leave it alone, wash the outside (as you would circumcised).
http://www.cirp.org/ [cirp.org]
http://www.sexuallymutilatedchild.org/ [sexuallymu...dchild.org]
Re:I must be a Luddite... (Score:2)
Unless you actually like your night vision...
I know a couple of people who've had laser eye surgery and they both say that since the surgery their night vision has been shot to hell.
But it beats the hell out of what came before - the previous system was basically a milling machine that sliced out pieces with a spinning razor disc. Niiice.
Re:I must be a Luddite... (Score:2)
Of course it's possible your friends just think their night vision is worse.
Re:I must be a Luddite... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I must be a Luddite... (Score:4, Informative)
Usually these effects wear off after a couple of weeks, and some people never experience them at all, but for a minority of patients, they are left with a permanent "starburst" effect, which is worst in any high-contrast light-on-dark situation, such as driving at night.
The problem is serious enough that some governments have banned any person who has had laser eye surgery from driving at all - which is annoying for those who had their vision corrected to bring it into the range acceptable for driving in the first place!
Re:I must be a Luddite... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I must be a Luddite... (Score:3, Informative)
It just corrects flaws in the lenses, which should make all types of vision better. Anyone? I'm considering it, that's why I'm interested.
It doesn't "correct flaws in the lenses". It has no effect on the eye's anatomical part called a"lens". Typical near/far sightedness isn't caused by any geometric flaws, but rather by the eye's inability to refocus the "baseline" position of the lens due to skeletal changes forcing geometry changes of the eyeball. Astigmatism is due to corneal flaw in shape but the
Re:I must be a Luddite... (Score:2)
Newer lasers can correct a larger radius, but of course this requires removing more material, so cornea thickness becomes a larger concern.
I was rejected for laser surgery because of the potential it'd mess up my night vision.
Gives a whole new meaning to... (Score:5, Funny)
Minority Report and the Future (Score:4, Insightful)
Reminds me of the scene where Tom Cruise went to get his eyes replaced in the Minority Report. Nevertheless, the question that "will be as good as someday?" is somewhat pointless, because we all know that as technology advances, will ALWAYS be as good as in the future. Unless we blow ourselves up, I am certain that we will have eye implants that gives humans super-vision, as well as being able to see-through walls, amongst other goodies. The better quesion is, how long will it take for technology to get there.
I don't see what the big deal is... (Score:4, Funny)
Oh the irony (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
it already exists (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:it already exists (Score:3)
Re:Can I get these in "Beer Goggles" mode? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Can I get these in "Beer Goggles" mode? (Score:3, Funny)
15% of the worlds blind (Score:4, Insightful)
could be cured for the cost of 1 Nuclear submarine, but as we are not serious about curing blindness we would rather have multiple subs and lots of blind people
http://www.mercyships.org [mercyships.org]
Re:15% of the worlds blind (Score:3, Insightful)
Similarly, we could cure hunger and disease for the price of 3 nuclear subs. But next year we'd have to pay even more because all our free food aid has bankrupted the few remaining farmers in Africa (this does actually happen by the way). Then after a few years, when we say 'enough is enough' and ask them to grow their own damn food for a change,
Re:15% of the worlds blind (Score:4, Insightful)
And don't tell me you don't have the money. Growing up in a family of seven, living off of less than $70k in the 90's, my parents always gave at least 10% to charity. We weren't poor but I'm sure most slashdotters are much better off than we were. From the very first allowence I recieved, I have given at least 10% of my income to charity. When I was only getting $10/month as a high schooler in 1997, when I was living off ramen in college, I still gave. Because my parents taught me that no matter how bad off you are, there is someone who needs the money more than you. A church here has managed to put on a huge outreach event once a year, in addition to their normal day to day support. This is only a medium size church, and it is one of the less wealth churches in the city, and yet it manages to achieve things that the huge mega churches wouldn't dream of doing.
I am not saying any of this to brag, but to point out that you can make a difference, even if you aren't rich. So to all progressive that want to improve people's lives, before you impose your morals on the entire country, before you create another inept government beurocracy - ask yourself what you are doing to improve the world yourself. I know some of you are already, but I know just as many who are not. Worse, some are even being a drain on society - of thier own choice, not because of the evils of society, as much as they would like to think otherwise. There are some things that are systematic problems and need a change of policy to improve the dynamics of our economic system. But social programs are do not fall into this catagory, and if you are not giving money to these programs yourself already, then you have no right to force your fellow countrymen to do so instead.
Steve Austin...a man barely alive... (Score:2)
Legal issues with artificial eyes... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Legal issues with artificial eyes... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Legal issues with artificial eyes... (Score:2)
Divine powers? (Score:2)
Restoring sight to the blind is a Bibical miracle, a sign of divine powers.
Well, as The Doctor said: "Divine intervention is ... unlikely". :-)
zAbout time too! (Score:4, Interesting)
This is early days yet, I know, but it offers some hope.
Screw Artificial Eyes (Score:2, Funny)
Of course, even better... (Score:2)
And the Law of Accelerating will make shure it comes sooner than we all aticipate it.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Please wont somebody think of the blind diabeti (Score:2)
BTW, when your retinas are bleeding, it's because of blood vessel changes caused by the diabetes, and there's a very good chance that the sam
Only for people who could see at some time (Score:5, Informative)
These devices won't restore eyesight to people who were born blind. Only those who, at one time in their life, actually could see will profit from such technical replacements.
When you are born you are nearly blind. It takes four to six years for the visual cortex to develop fully. After the age of six this development stops and thats the end of it.
If you are born blind then the cortex will not be trained and no magic eye surgery will restore your vision, because after the age of six the visual cortex will no longer adapt to the new situation.
Even if your eyes are restored to 20/20 vision you will not see a thing because your vision center doesn't know how to interpret the pictures. So these kinds of surgery will only help people which went blind and not those who were born blind. (Still cool stuff)
BTW. It is the same with deafness.
Re:Only for people who could see at some time (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyways, if they can do heart surgery on newborns, I think they could quickly learn to pull this off and
Re:Only for people who could see at some time (Score:2)
Re:Only for people who could see at some time (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not saying it could be retrained to process visual information after a lifetime of other use, I just thought its cool how the brain can effectively rewire itself. Kinda like detaching the speakers from your computer and having the sound card automatically start processing graphics (or something)
Re:Only for people who could see at some time (Score:5, Interesting)
The psychologists were dumbfounded to discover that he could read the time on clocks and even the titles of books straight away, without any learning. It turned out that he had a "blind" watch (a clock without a cover over the face, so he could tell the time from feeling the positions of the fingers), and at school he'd been taught to recognise capital letters by their shape. Somehow this shape information was transferred from touch into sight ("cross-modal transfer").
However, when it came to objects that were out of his tactile knowledge, he was unable to respond to them properly - e.g. he had no way of estimating the distance of any object further away than the length of his arm, and pictures and photographs were just meaningless blobs of colour.
Re:Only for people who could see at some time (Score:2, Informative)
BTW, Why is this just making news here, now? I saw a spot on CNN probably a year ago or more about a guy that was
Oops, forgot to mention... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Only for people who could see at some time (Score:3, Informative)
I know because there are other conditions which, to some extend, lead to the same phenomenon. If you are suffering from strabismus or nystagmus since birth the same could happen to you. If you suffer from strabismus then you get diplopic images since right and left eye are not parallel.
The brain cannot cope with this kind of double visi
Progress,,,? (Score:4, Insightful)
Now for the Egyptian Magicians... (Score:2)
Well, the really good Egyptian magicians were supposed to be able to reattach a severed head. Now THAT'S technology! Betcha they can't do that at Olympus.
useful but not great (Score:3, Informative)
There is absolutely no equal to the organic material of the eye, though. As good as the implant is, it's still like looking at a bad reprint of a picture.
When it comes to the human body, third party products are decent if you can't get the real thing. But, they really aren't (and probably won't be) better.
Re:useful but not great - use a tooth (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:useful but not great (Score:2)
Gonna have to disagree with you on that parenthetical part. The body is truly the most amazing machine, and nothing we can make now really stacks up to what the body can do, but for the foreseeable future, the human body will essentially be unchanged. 100 years from now, 1000 years from now, if we don't modify the body ourselves, the human body will pretty much be exactly the same as it is now.
So, basically a stationary target. While human SCIENCE
privacy (Score:2)
Or is the power involved far too weak for that.
Eye of Newt (Score:3, Funny)
Video-game inputs? (Score:2)
How are you going to power these things? (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
My mother needs this... (Score:2)
Great! (Score:2)
Now lets fix amblyopia!
Well that's fecked that then... (Score:2)
who's for going the whole hog and inventing replacable fingers, faces etc
CJC
Other artificial vision & nerve regen projects (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, PBS has a series Innovation - Life, inspired where one of the episodes [pbs.org] discusses another artificial vision procedure consisting of a direct ocular brain implant currently in human trials. The program follows a patient who has the surgical procedure done and then her recuperation and initial testing of the implant. Most interesting. They also show another group who is trying a different kind of brain implant, but who haven't yet made it to human trials.
Between nerve / brain cell regrowth and implant research ongoing we will likely see amazing cures for formerly untreatable injuries and illnesses within our lifetimes. It's pretty amazing to see the beginnings of Bionic Man type stuff actually happen in my lifetime. --M
Re:anyone here a possible retina donor? (Score:2)
Re:Get infravision, Win the JREF Prize... (Score:4, Funny)
VOILA not VIOLA (Score:2)
Re:Outstanding (Score:2, Insightful)
Look at the record of history: the more we know about disease, the more diseases we discover. The more illnesses we cure, the more develop. Even things that we thought were just part of the aging process are now classified as disease.
Re:Outstanding (Score:2)
I would expect that any true "miracle" cures would be subsidized by the government(s) of the corporations involved.
Obviously the producers need to be paid for their work. Governments can buy up whatever they want to distribute to their people.
Now, if you're talking about AIDS/Malaria/whatever medicines for African nations... someone's gotta fix the African governments first.