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Technology

Bionic Eyes 113

Posted by michael from the six-dollar-man dept.
DNAhelix writes: "From NASA: Bionic Eyes - Using space technology, scientists have developed extraordinary ceramic photocells that could repair malfunctioning human eyes."
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Bionic Eyes More

Bionic Eyes

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  • Finally (Score:3, Funny)

    by Xenph ( 179117 ) on Saturday January 05, 2002 @06:21AM (#2790172)
    After all the years of eye damage from CRT radiation I have a chance to see again :) This will sell well with all the hardcore hackers :)
    • This will sell well with all the hardcore hackers :)

      Hardcore...?

      Maybe if there wasn't so much pr0n on the web we wouldn't all be going blind? *heh*
    • I wonder if these will be better than my metallic Tleilaxu eyes. They give me decent sight, but my friends say I look creepy with pitted aluminum spheres in my eye-sockets.

  • Somehow... (Score:5, Funny)

    by khaladan ( 445 ) on Saturday January 05, 2002 @06:21AM (#2790173)
    I think that a large portion of the /. community falls under the "malfunctioning eye" category.
    • I wouldn't mod your post as funny. Quite serious. One of my family members has retinitis pigmentosa and is adamant that science will restore (to some degree) her sight before she dies. She refuses to learn braille for this reason. I don't encourage that viewpoint, but do share with her each eye science article that gets posted here.

      I'm helping spec her computer and accessibility software now, her first PC since MS-DOS...

      • Re: NOT FUNNY (Score:5, Insightful)

        by skroz ( 7870 ) on Saturday January 05, 2002 @04:50PM (#2791415) Homepage
        Umm, I'm going to classify it as pretty funny.

        About your sister; her viewpoint does not strike me as particularly healthy. For 20+ years I've been told that science would cure my macular degeneration, and my mother was told the same thing about HER eyes for 20+ years before me. Living life waiting for a cure is unhealthy, as it can lead to depression when that cure doesn't arrive, and unproductive for obvious reasons.

        I read articles like this and take them with a grain of salt. They're neat little curiosities, but they get shoved in the same mental pile as all of the stories about terahertz processors, holographic memory, and privatized spaceflight that we'll have "some day Real Soon Now." So don't hold your breath.

        A bit of advice (which I'm sure she's heard a hundred times before) for your sister; don't wait for a cure. Assume that it's never going to happen, and get on with your life. It's a whole lot easier than you think.
      • Maybe science will eventually restore her sight, but does she really want to curl up in a useless ball between now and then? She really should learn braille so she can keep reading, and doesn't have two tons of unread books to wade through when/if she does get her sight back.
        • Ahh, but she can keep reading without knowing braille.

          1) Books on tape.

          2) Scan pages, convert to text, have the PC read it to her. There is software designed expressly for this purpose.

          3) E-mail, and web browsing (though browsing is a pain because of crappy web design).

          I think the most troublesome issue will be note taking. She either has to have a sharp memory, or use a handheld designed for the blind.
      • From the article:

        The first human trials of such detectors will begin in 2002. Dr. Charles Garcia of the University of Texas Medical School in Houston will be the surgeon in charge.

        If she's that serious, then why doesn't she contact Dr. Garcia and try to convince him to let her be in the trials?
        • I missed the blurb about human trials. (I even visited his web site looking for a submission form. Many research projects let you sign up online.)

          Thanks for the alert, I'll send him an e-mail.

  • Uhhhh (Score:3, Funny)

    by mESSDan ( 302670 ) on Saturday January 05, 2002 @06:27AM (#2790178) Homepage

    Well, the article is from NASA, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised when aliens contribute to the articles.

    Image courtesy A. Ignatiev

    Bad grammar aside, anyone know what an Ignatiev is? ;)

    • Re:Uhhhh (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Dr. Alex Ignatiev, a professor at the University of Houston. Stop looking at the pretty pictures and read the article.
  • Woohoo!

    For me with a history of retinal detachment since the age of 22 this is good news indeed. Fixing the retina by installing a pea-sized bit of silicone inside the outer layer of the eyeball is such a medical kludge...

    • Discover magazine ran an article on the silicon version of this in August 2001 [discover.com] and I remember seeing something about it on one of the Discovery Science channel programs.

      The question I have about your comment however is: if your retina is detaching, wouldn't this technology be just as ineffective as your existing retina?

      This seems to be a pretty invasive procedure and might even make your problem worse as the retina is 'elevated' to insert the arrays.

      This could probably speed or complicate your problem based on the type of retinal detachment you have. (more information on retinal detachment here: http://www.vrmny.com/retinal_detachment.htm [vrmny.com]

      • Yes, it looks like I didn't read the article thoroughly enough. The artificial component would not be able replace the entire retina. You're also right in that the eye operations are risky and I wouldn't opt for any massive surgery unless I was about to lose sight in both of my eyes.

        Regarding my operation, the retina was reattached in the corrective surgery but I was told that it could start coming off again in the future.

        In my case I was given a choice between a "quick-and-dirty" laser fix and a more thorough surgery ("Scleral buckle" on the page you linked to). In the former treatment the borders of the detached area would be burnt with the laser to prevent further degradation, but the results would not be as good. In fact, if the detachment continued after the burn-in the resulting damage would become even more severe than without the operation.

        • I too am quite blind in one eye due to diabetic retinopathy. Two surgeries in 4 weeks left me with a retina that's effectively swiss chees. Often I wear an eye patch to avoid headaches caused by my brain trying to rectify the vaseline covered circus mirror vision that remains in my bad eye.
          Further damage is avoided by reducing the chance of hemmorage in the eye and the susequent scar tissue which tore the retina before.
          This article mentions the brain compensating for the new voltages the implant provides. Given that my good eye is usually 20/20, I hope subjects like myself are used in this study.

  • Next generation of glasses ? :) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by boaworm ( 180781 ) <boaworm@gmail.com> on Saturday January 05, 2002 @06:29AM (#2790181) Homepage Journal
    Looks to me like a brilliant joint venture between biology and technology. This first step is to see if we can provide some vision to blind people, or to enhance the vision of almost-blind people.

    If we can get such things to work, we could be close to getting good night-vision enhancements for people with normal sight as well.
    And the best thing... I dont really see how this technology could be abused. Many other implants and biotech research projects are accused of being too much sci-fi (stem cell research, organ transplants, organ growth etc). Some communities are having a hard time accepting those, because they see the risks that follows (ethical questions about life). But this seems to be more like improved glasses, and even the Pope are using those =)
    • And the best thing... I dont really see how this technology could be abused. Many other implants and biotech research projects are accused of being too much sci-fi (stem cell research, organ transplants, organ growth etc). Some communities are having a hard time accepting those, because they see the risks that follows (ethical questions about life). But this seems to be more like improved glasses, and even the Pope are using those =)

      Well.. technology is wonderfull :)

      Possible abuses:
      o infra-red enhancements -- see all the fun biological functions of anyone..
      o x-ray vision enhancements -- see anything anywhere
      o distance vision enhancements -- see thing far away or too small (lawyers would get less good deals because you'd be able to see the small print =)
      - if this can be linked to silicon, all kind of computer-based vision enhancements would come to mind.. something in series of terminator 2 ;)

      And if inra-red will become true, then our (yours actually, as i'm scandinavian already ;) standards of privacy (physical) will change very, very much as bodily functions will become transparent to anyone. Pretty much the same as nudism. I personally believe that it will enbetter society, and removes possibility for several perversions.. but that's MHO.

  • Cool! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by krmt ( 91422 ) <therefrmhere@yah o o . com> on Saturday January 05, 2002 @06:43AM (#2790199) Homepage
    That's weird, I was just thinking about the artificial eyes in William Gibson's novels and how they'd possibly be done.

    I think the most difficult part about this is how the nerves will react. I think they're very right about the brain needing training to adapt to this. I'm pretty confident it could do it, but I don't know how much training it would take.

    I thought the process with the dissolving film was an incredible idea too.

    I hope this one pulls through. Does anyone with a neuroscience background have any thoughts on the feasibility of this one?
    • I was jut wondering actually how the nerves attach to the new 'rods & cones' its not like you can use a soldering iron the way it sounds is that you just put it their and hope that it aligns up right (chances tare that it will due to the density and size) but how you make sure that it doesn't float away in the eye
      • Yeah, that was my first thought as well. Also, are the nerves even there? I'm far from a neuroscientist, but I have heard things to the effect that nerves can dwindle if left unstimulated. If the retina has been gone long enough, are the nerves still there?

        I think if they are there though, the training would be critical. I don't think they would properly line up initially, as you've said. My guess though, is that the brain would eventually rewire things (maybe downstream from the brain too) to sort out the image correctly. That would be the training phase. The fact that the brain can massively rework itself to recover from trauma indicates to me that this is possible.

        Once again, I'm no neuroscientist (I've decided that in biology there are neuroscientists and everyone else, and I'm in the latter category) but I have a fair amount of faith in this if it works as well as they say. The problem would be the time and effort to train the person to see correctly.
        • Don't forget that some aspects of visual wiring in the brain occur in growth stages from infancy on up. An adult brain may have some plasticity, but it remains to be seen what the limitations of it's abilities to adapt to these implants are.

    • Re:Cool! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by pcbob ( 67069 )
      Problem with brain is that unless you can see from the begining of your life, being able to see for the first time when you are 25 is not going to do you very good - brain simply hasn't had much training as to patern recogniton, depth perception, etc. People who get their vision later in life have hard time dealing with it, and it becomes more of a burden than heplful - they would still have to tuch things in order to recognize them, sometimes even different colour of the object will confuse them... So, while this is great news for people who are about to lose their sight (kids including), people that are blind today, and have been so for most of their lives, probably won't have much use of it.
      I knew that psychology class i took last semester was worth something :)
      • Problem with brain is that unless you can see from the begining of your life, being able to see for the first time when you are 25 is not going to do you very good - brain simply hasn't had much training as to patern recogniton, depth perception, etc. People who get their vision later in life have hard time dealing with it, and it becomes more of a burden than heplful - they would still have to tuch things in order to recognize them, sometimes even different colour of the object will conI knew that psychology class i took last semester was worth something :)fuse them... So, while this is great news for people who are about to lose their sight (kids including), people that are blind today, and have been so for most of their lives, probably won't have much use of it.

        Not that I don't believe everything that I read in the comment section of Slashdot, but do you have in references for the statements you make? What study is it that analyzed people who got their vision late in life and where did they find these people?

        Most articles I've read on the subject indicate the brain is very adept at adapting to new input. (do a google search for brain adapating sensory input and you get tons of abstracts)

        I knew that psychology class i took last semester was worth something :)

        Were you awarded your PhD immediately after the class?

        Perhaps you should try a neural physiology class next time.

        • Check out the book "An Anthropologist on Mars" by Oliver Sacks for a case study of just a person. Here's a site which has a very short synopsis of Sacks' book and, in particular, of the case of "Virgil": http://www.oliversacks.com/mars.html [oliversacks.com]

          • Re:Cool! (Score:2, Insightful)

            by klaun ( 236494 )
            This doesn't support the original assertion that someone will never be able to learn to see. In fact, it is just the opposite, that people with eyesight restored do learn to see eventually.
      • Yeah, what was the name of that Val Kilmer movie that was about this very topic? Psychology class...right. All knowledge comes from movies. :)

    • Re:Cool! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Raving ( 548181 ) <olivier.parisy@f ... inus threevowels> on Saturday January 05, 2002 @07:48AM (#2790256)
      I think they're very right about the brain needing training to adapt to this. I'm pretty confident it could do it, but I don't know how much training it would take.

      IANAB, but I remember some experiments about human vision which involved wearing during some days glasses-like devices which comprised prisms and reverted the left/right, up/down or both.

      It took people some hours to adjust, but then they could react properly again to their environment (walking and the like).

      So, yes, our visual cortex is very flexible to unexpected visual stimuli modifications, and seems to adjusts in a relatively short time...

      Olivier.

  • Surgery (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Larkfellow ( 265776 )
    Based on the location within the eye that the surgery would need to take place, it seems to me that the surgery could acctually cause more problems than it fixes. Apart from that, it would be interesting to see what kind of images the brain would actually produce from the implant (no pun intended). Would it mean people being able to see again, albeit in black and white?

    • Re:Surgery (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Would it mean people being able to see again, albeit in black and white?

      no. that's what the cones are for.
      • Yes, however. Take for example somebody who is completely blind and needs to have all their cones replaced. Some people who are color blind have this condition of seeing in black and white. Though not many.

        In anycase, I'll wait for a zooming feature before I get anything like that done.
        • Now that is an interesting thought; having some kind of wearable computer that can do image processing and inject the signal back into the optic nerve.
          Not only would you be able to play your favorite games with your eyes closed, but you could have an internal HUD for all that PIM stuff.
          The ghoulish cyborg possibilities are endless.

          Prediction: society shuns all such gimmickry, prefering to employ technology to correct flaws, not augment people.
          • I dunno about that, different societies have different attitudes toward "augmentation" - the Japanese, for example, seem to be embracing the idea enthusiastically, with government-sanctioned cloning, biomech, and genetics research. The minds of the younger generation there have been prepared for the idea of augments for a long time, thanks to Anime - international example would be Ghost in the Shell. Similar situation in many urban centres in northern europe. Could american society be left behind, as a race of transhumans springs up out of Japan?

    • Hmm. . .but will they have blinking red dots on their temples, too?
    • Retinal surgery is dangerous, but not much more than any other invasive procudures. It's very delicate work. So delicate that the first surgeon to attempt it practised on egg yolks. Once he successfully could keep a yolk intact did he deem the procedure possible.

  • How long... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dharcombe ( 183391 ) on Saturday January 05, 2002 @07:00AM (#2790217) Homepage
    "We are conducting preliminary tests on the ceramic detectors for biocompatibility, and they appear to be totally stable"
    Hmmm... As a lifelong glasses/contacts wearer, I don't like the sound of the words 'preliminary' and 'appear' in this article. By the time they're actually ready, I bet I'll be long gone. A shame.
    Long term testing needs to be done too; since the eyes deteriorate with age (which can adversely affect the results of current corrective surgery, such as LASIK where if you get it done too soon, you'll need glasses again by the time you're 35-40) I'd love to know what will happen to this technology.
    Don't get me wrong; it's way cool. But these are my eyes, dammit!

    • Re:How long... (Score:4, Informative)

      by deander2 ( 26173 ) <public@nOSPaM.kered.org> on Saturday January 05, 2002 @12:04PM (#2790623) Homepage
      About the LASIK surgury...

      It's true that if you have LASIK surgery you may require glasses again when you are older, but this is due to the natural aging process of the eye, not the LASIK surgery. Your risk of needing reading glasses when you're old remains exactly the same as if you never had any eye surgery.

      Your eye has special muscles that reshape the curve of your eye's natural lens. These muscles weaken over time, and can't change shape to focus on objects near to you. This is what reading glasses correct, and is a different problem than what LASIK corrects.
  • Nothing would be cooler than walking down the street with chrome eyes. Just imagine the reactions of people.
    • You can order mirrored contact lenses (prescription or non-prescription) from several theatrical F/X shops, including this one [lensquest.com].

      I used to want those, but now I've upped my sights (so to speak). Now I want tinted contact lenses that change into "sunglasses" in bright light, like those variable-tint "sun sensor" glasses. They'd basically be enhancing the degree to which your iris can vary the amount of light that gets into your eye -- that'd be a "bionic" device I'd happily pay for.

      -Mark
  • I can't stop thinking of the economic effect that this magnificent discovery will inflict. Probably all of the people who wear glasses will stop doing that and... this will surely mean that many of the companies in this domain will go bankrupt. Anyway it's a great invention. When and if it gets on the market I'll be the first to buy it!
  • Pardon me, but reading the article, two major questions came to my mind.

    The question of availability has already been asked, and the answer clearly is in a long long time. I'm glad to hear they found some desperate person to accept to test the technology as soon as 2002 (don't misunderstand me, I'd be desperate too if I lost my eyes), but come on. It won't work right the first time, nor the second. And then they'll have to conduct large-scale studies to optimize the huge amount of parameters and tunings such operations involve. I don't expect such operations becoming common before ten or twenty years.

    But moreover, how much will this cost? Ultra-thin ceramic films don't grow on trees, and I'd be surprised they'd become cheap, relatively speaking, anyday soon. Besides I guess that people able to put millimeter-sized implants at the back of the eye are not selling their skills for free, far from it. I think only a few crazy millionaires will have a chance to try it in the next few years, if even they dare, or their insurances allow them.

    • Re:Who can afford that? Or when? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      But moreover, how much will this cost?

      Back in the '70s, you could get a bionic arm, 2 bionic legs & a bionic eye for $6 million.

      The problem with them was that they created cheezy sound effects when you used them.

  • Did you know that about 8% of men have little bit colorblindness, maybe not much but still have that problem?

    Could this be the solution for us? Will the humankind be saved?

    • It's interesting to see who exactly caters to the wants and needs of us colorblind folk. Being a gamer for the most part, you really pick up on what you can play and what you can't. Those 'bubble' games, are all great, but, you have to line up colored balls. Sometimes it's hard to distinguish what the spinning shapes in the middle are. EverQuest was good enough about having different messages when you 'con' something. So, that helps. I currently play Dark Age of Camelot. And, for those that really haven't noticed (and play DAoC, of course), that's what those little "+" and "-" signs are for next to everything you target. One, two, or three plusses let you know how many levels higher (three means it's just too high) something is than you. Similarly for the minuses.

      I get sick of people asking about traffic lights. I live in the USA. *EVERY* traffic light I've ever seen will have the red either on top, or the left. Green has always been on the bottom or the right.

      It's kind of amazing once you sit back and just take notice on how dependant we are on colors. And assume that everybody can see them fine.

      --Xan

  • hmm (Score:1)

    by Libster ( 308301 )
    'twill certainly make for interesting crime once retna scanning is an everyday form of identification.

  • This is scary, I just saw a program about this on Discovery Science a week ago, They were talking about how it wouldn't return complete sight, and they showed a simulation of what it would look like, it reminded me of the old 8-bit video games, except with more colors.

    Well, at least those who are addicted to MAME and NES Emulators will be able to play them again :)

  • Why can't they understand that a direct plug into the visual cortex is much better ?
    And it will not only help the blind but everyone.

  • A little Bionic history: (Score:4, Funny)

    by mESSDan ( 302670 ) on Saturday January 05, 2002 @09:42AM (#2790345) Homepage

    First off, don't be fooled by the date on this article. Steve Austin has been testing bionic equipment since his crash at NASA.

    My only question for this "new" technology is: Do we still have to listen to that damned "Bionic" noise everytime we focus on something with our bionic eyes? I mean geez, that noise got old fast, not to mention that it makes it hard to be discrete when you're using your bionic vision on the hot chick standing next to you. She hears the noise, looks over at you, sees your bionic chubber and knows what YOU'VE been doing. C'mon NASA, hook us up.

    ;)

    • I don't know about anyone else, but I'm going to wait till they start combining other bionic body parts [slashdot.org] to become the next Six Million Dollar Man.

      At these prices, though, I don't think it would have the same effect as Steve Austin. Really, who would be intimidated by a mere Three Hundred-Thousand Dollar Man?

  • Space Eyes! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Corgha ( 60478 ) on Saturday January 05, 2002 @09:59AM (#2790370)
    Using space technology...

    "Space technology"? What is this, the 1950's?

    "Hey, Space Jimmy, time for your Space Math lesson."
    "Spaceriffic!"
    "What's space two plus space two?"
    "Space four!"

    • Re:Space Eyes! (Score:4, Informative)

      by sjames ( 1099 ) on Saturday January 05, 2002 @11:45AM (#2790571) Homepage Journal

      "Space technology"? What is this, the 1950's?

      The depositation process used to create the ceramic photosensor WAS developed in space. I see your point, but we can hardly blame NASA for wanting to make sure people know that spending their tax money on NASA can directly benefit them later. It's awefully hard to create a vacuum that good on earth.

  • Artificial biological eyes (Score:4, Informative)

    by sstammer ( 235235 ) on Saturday January 05, 2002 @10:07AM (#2790383)
    There is also a story [abc.net.au] in the press today about some Japanese researchers who have developed eyes biologically.

  • Hey... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those!
  • The article mentions that the device replaces the damaged rods and cones in the eye. This is not the same as myopia and hypermetropia (short- and long- sightedness) that people wear glasses for. These problems are caused by the lens at the front of the eye. LASIK surgery would be more useful for people like us, instead of the ceramic microdetector thingy.

    On another note, the article doesn't say anything about whether the arrays act more like rods (high-speed night vision) or cones (high-detail colour images). Or does it act like a video camera? It would also make sense to implant the array near or on the fovea (center of the retina, all cones only), so that the array produces the images in the center of the person's vision. If the implant wasn't at the fovea, they would seem to be looking away from you when they're actually looking at you. Also, if the implant acted more like rods, this could be weird for the person.

    But all this talk of cutting open the eye and doing all that squishy stuff freaks me out too.

    ~~Duane
  • Finnaly a piece of tech that bean counters and lawyers could appreciate. For those cut throat office enviroments... Eyes in the back of my head.
  • Those who've read the article know that the material used in these devices is produced by a crystal growth process called molecular beam epitaxy. Growing high purity crystals this way requires "ultra-high vacuums" - that is, background pressures 10^15 times lower than atomospheric pressure.

    Dr. Ignatiev at the University of Houston [uh.edu] is in charge of a NASA-funded effort to develop "Space Vacuum Epitaxy", where researchers try to take advantage of the vacuum of space as a growth environment. The problem is, near-earth space simply isn't low enough pressure to work well, meaning that the researchers need to have their experiments behind a "wake-shield" - basically a big metal plate that pushes unwanted gas molecules out of the way.

    The upshot is that space vacuum epitaxy is hugely expensive. Better and more controlled vacuums may be achieved on earth at a tiny fraction of the cost of a single shuttle launch. While I'm glad NASA funds research efforts like this, many such projects, even while producing cool results, often end up with the conclusion that doing the work in space is neither necessary nor desirable.

  • that they don't say anything whatsoever about how they are going to hook this device up to the optic nerve? Without that, everything is for nothing. Do they really know how to do this? If so, why wasn't it mentioned in the article? If not, why was the article written at all?

  • Retinal research (Score:4, Informative)

    by BWJones ( 18351 ) on Saturday January 05, 2002 @02:29PM (#2791011) Homepage Journal
    There are a number of issues with the use of retinal prosthetics. One is the light sensitivity. Silicon based retinal implants have been explored for some time and beyond the silicon toxicity issues, there are issues of the sensitivity of the photoreceptive properties of aritificial circuits. The retina is not simply a CCD and artificial silicon "retinas" are nowhere near the real sensitivities of a human retina. The light required to activate many of these chips is equivalent to shining the full brightness of the sun into the eye.

    Additionally, these studies are making several assumptions about the nature of retinal degenerations in that bionic based implants will be able to successfully interface with the ganglion cells or the output cells of the retina. I have read nothing that examines the field effects of these chips. In other words, how do we know that when these chips are activated that they just stimulate the ganglion cells? Basic physics tells us that there should be field effects that also might influence amacrine cells, horizontal cells, remaining bipolar cells etc...

    The other assumption that almost no-one in the visual research community has addressed is the intrinsic circuitry of the retina in cases of retinal degeneration. The underlying assumption is that in retinitis pigmentosa and macular degenerations the photoreceptors degenerate from a variety of primary insults (genetic and environmental) and the rest of the retina remains relatively intact. Preliminary research by myself and others indicate that this is NOT the case. The retina continues to degenerate and remodel itself with large numbers of retinal cell subclasses that dissappear and move into other layers of the retina among other dramatic changes.

    This does not neccessarily shut the door on retinal transplantation research, rather it indicates that there are other issues that need to be addressed and straightforward transplantations (biologic and bionic based) are not neccessarily going to work in the short term. I think eventually they will work with a combination of pharmacotherapy and/or gene therapy, but we are probably 50 years or more off. Therefore in response to another poster who has a family member who suffers from retinitis pigmentosa and refuses to learn braille, I would suggest that she does not hold out hope that a cure will be just around the corner and make the effort to learn braille and use other methods such as computer mods with large text etc... to compensate.
  • Something out of a Dune novel, hmmm, can we say Tleilaxu!!! Damn Nasa and their Duncan Tanks!!! sorry ;-)
  • You know what happens when you use a video recorder on a tv, their syncs don't match. I'm wondering would the same thing happen with these eyes, as it would make it hard to use any video monitor.
  • My eyes crashed again...
  • This stinks of those dirty Tleilaxu!
  • So I can browse through and figure out all the shows of Married ... With Children where Christina Applegate wore a bikini?

    Wowww ... win-win. :)
  • "You Nexus 6?!! I make your eyes."
  • I wonder if they could draw a crosshair in the center of the device's output? I've been wanting to walk around with a crosshair for a long time.

  • RGB (Score:1)

    by towaz ( 445789 )
    I wonder if this technology can be used to perceive new colours then out normal rgb...saw an articly about people born with an extra colour then rgb but forget what it was.

    .
    .
  • All this visual nanotech is nice and all, but isn't the biggest problem with these electronic implants the actual interface to the human nerve system ? You could build a 40-bazillion pixel LCD for your retinas, but if you don't know how to hook it up to that fat optic nerve you're still in the dark (heh).

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