[Missouri-l] Eyeballs Are so Spoiled These Days

[majolls at cox.net]

OK... well I'm waiting for the contacts where you "see money in your future" and then your bank account fills up magically.

Seriously, I'm waiting for them to have a retina transplant to fix my screwed up and scarred retinas..  I recently saw a piece on Scientific American (hosted by Alan Alda) that showed that doctors and scientists are thinking that way.  On the program, they had a blind person who had an array of electrodes implanted on the back of the retina.  He was then given a special pair of glasses with a video camera mounted in the nose bridge.  The very small camera transmitted wirelessly to the array of electrodes and the signal was passed over the optic nerve to the brain.

At the time the program was recorded .. I think it was a couple of years ago .. they only had 16 electrodes on the implant ... meaning you only got 16 points of light coming in which isn't anywhere near the resolution that you need for a good image.  Toward the end of the segment, they said they were working on a 1,000 electrode implant.  The program showed what that looked like and while it wasn't like a good computer image, it did offer a usable picture for someone who has never had sight before.  I think to be really usable, they're going to have to get an implant that has approximately (or better) 1,000,000 pixels of information.  That's about what a good computer image provides today.

Anyway, it would seem that artificial vision for us may be on the horizon.

---- hiway66 <hiway66 at sbcglobal.net> wrote: 
> Eyeballs Are so Spoiled These Days
> July 30, 2008 1:53 PM
> 
> For those who are bored with ordinary contact lenses, there's quite a few strange new objects out there and others in the works that you can stick in your eye and not go blind (hopefully).
> 
> For instance, an artist-designer in the Netherlands named Eric Klarenbeek has created what he calls eye jewelery for people who have been dying to dangle diamonds from their eyeballs. But blinging in this manner may pose some problems: Besides having to figure out what to wear with it, some pain may be involved.
> 
> Dr. Brian Boxer-Wachler, an ophthalmologist based in Beverly Hills, warns that potential bleeding may occur as the string scratches against sensitive skin layers. "It looks like it would rub against the bottom of your eyelid as it swings around," he said. "And so I would expect it to cause some irritation if it were to be worn for a prolonged length of time." 
> 
> And although the doctor "applauds the creativity" of such a concept, he notes that there are safer ways to wear jewelery. 
> 
> And since it seems like we are spending more and more of our waking hours in front of a computer screen these days, a new technology being developed at the University of Washington may allow us to always be connected. Scientists at a laboratory somewhere in Seattle have figured out a way to fit circuits and LEDs into a contact lens. They've even tested the prototype lens on a rabbit and found no adverse affects. 
> 
> Although the bionic lenses aren't fully functional yet, additional research may make it possible to perhaps read e-mail and watch movies by having them beamed directly to your eye. Sleep is overrated anyway.