4 ms·

Scientists reveal bionic eye prototype

36 points by apapli 13y ago

Hitchhiker 13y ago
This is freaking awesome..
apapli 13y ago
What a brilliant gift - aiming to give sight to the blind. It would be wonderful if it could stay out of commercial hands and be distributed as far as possible.
- mhb 13y ago
  Like cell phones.
- femto 13y ago
  That wasn't the universal response to cochlear implants. Some viewed their deafness as part of their identity, and not a disease to be cured. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant#Controversy_in_the_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant#Controversy_i...
- leknarf 13y ago
  The best way to distribute this device as far as possible would be to get it in skilled commercial hands. The creators should profit from giving sight to the blind. This sort of technology is a perfect example of wealth creation: the purchaser gains the ability to see and the creator gets money. Everyone wins. I hope the creators become very, very rich. I hope they become so rich that someone else decides to compete by creating BionicEye 2.0.
userulluipeste 13y ago
...but I thought this technology is supposed to appear only hundreds of years from now! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geordi_La_Forge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geordi_La_Forge
quux 13y ago
This is awesome. But I wonder what it must be like to be able to see, even with your eyes closed. What I mean is, I imagine that it may be a bit overwhelming to a new user to suddenly be getting visual input. A simple solution would be adding a blink sensor to the glasses. When the wearer closes her eyes for longer than just a blink, shut off the video. Seems like an intuitive UI, since the instinctive thing to do with too much visual input is the shut your eyes. Even if you're blind I imagine.
epenn 13y ago
I'll save my full accolades for when I hear about the results of the first human trial, but I think this is an amazing idea and I really hope it works how they expect. More importantly, we are now one step closer to turning me into Robocop.
- legitsource 13y ago
  Maybe they can skip the first segment of the Robocop story for me. I'm okay with losing the parts I don't need through a nice, clean, anesthetized surgical procedure instead of through violent crime.
yuvalyonigalor 13y ago
so cool
ryusage 13y ago
That implant seems like a pretty serious surgery, though. Hopefully the trials go well and they get this figured out without too many mistakes.
IAmAI343 13y ago
A person receiving this implant will be able to receive more than just visual input from the world. He could receive input from the internet, or a virtual reality world. I imagine this is the first step of us moving to the net.
sukuriant 13y ago
They've been working on this for a while in different forms. It's awesome to see them at or near a point where it can be mass produced instead of experimental. I'm excited for it, and where the future could carry it forward: color vision, higher resolution, and so on. It's very exciting :)

36 points by apapli 13y ago

This is freaking awesome..

What a brilliant gift - aiming to give sight to the blind. It would be wonderful if it could stay out of commercial hands and be distributed as far as possible.

mhb 13y ago
Like cell phones.
femto 13y ago
That wasn't the universal response to cochlear implants. Some viewed their deafness as part of their identity, and not a disease to be cured. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant#Controversy_in_the_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant#Controversy_i...
leknarf 13y ago
The best way to distribute this device as far as possible would be to get it in skilled commercial hands. The creators should profit from giving sight to the blind. This sort of technology is a perfect example of wealth creation: the purchaser gains the ability to see and the creator gets money. Everyone wins. I hope the creators become very, very rich. I hope they become so rich that someone else decides to compete by creating BionicEye 2.0.

userulluipeste 13y ago

...but I thought this technology is supposed to appear only hundreds of years from now! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geordi_La_Forge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geordi_La_Forge

quux 13y ago

This is awesome. But I wonder what it must be like to be able to see, even with your eyes closed. What I mean is, I imagine that it may be a bit overwhelming to a new user to suddenly be getting visual input. A simple solution would be adding a blink sensor to the glasses. When the wearer closes her eyes for longer than just a blink, shut off the video. Seems like an intuitive UI, since the instinctive thing to do with too much visual input is the shut your eyes. Even if you're blind I imagine.

epenn 13y ago

I'll save my full accolades for when I hear about the results of the first human trial, but I think this is an amazing idea and I really hope it works how they expect. More importantly, we are now one step closer to turning me into Robocop.

legitsource 13y ago
Maybe they can skip the first segment of the Robocop story for me. I'm okay with losing the parts I don't need through a nice, clean, anesthetized surgical procedure instead of through violent crime.

yuvalyonigalor 13y ago

so cool

ryusage 13y ago

That implant seems like a pretty serious surgery, though. Hopefully the trials go well and they get this figured out without too many mistakes.

IAmAI343 13y ago

A person receiving this implant will be able to receive more than just visual input from the world. He could receive input from the internet, or a virtual reality world. I imagine this is the first step of us moving to the net.

sukuriant 13y ago

They've been working on this for a while in different forms. It's awesome to see them at or near a point where it can be mass produced instead of experimental. I'm excited for it, and where the future could carry it forward: color vision, higher resolution, and so on. It's very exciting :)