Bionic digital eyes for blind people

I read an article in a magazine about digital eyes that actually worked to cure blindness once implanted, though current version was at a low resolution so it's not 100% perfect.  Does anyone know what magazine this came from or a website with more info on these? 

how low? are we talking 640x480 here?

I remember seeing a documentary where they'd managed to implant 64 electrodes in a blind guy's head and could display an 8x8 grid of patterns directly into his visual cortex. He even had a DIN socket on his head, so he totally wins for that. This was about 15 years ago now, so I suspect they've advanced a bit. The trouble was, they explained, is that to get just a 100x100 image you'd need to implant 1,000 electrodes in the patient's head and calibrate them all...

I demand at least 1280x1024 resolution for my cyber-eyes.

Call me when the quality exceeds that of normal vision.  You know it can't be too far off.  Also, lasers please.

I don't know what magazine that came from, but I do know that one of the professors that I'm working for is also doing research on that stuff too!

LOL CYBER EYES

NOW WHEN WILL WE CAN GET HARDDISK IMPLEMENTED TO OUR BRAINS SO WE DONT HAVE TO STUDY ANYMORE

It's pretty awesome - there is research into man-machine interfacing, bionic senses (sight, sound), bionic limbs. Soon we will all be Robocop!

>>8
Perhaps.  Perhaps we'll all be Borg.  Or worse.
Funny, isn't it, the total silence of the rapture right about messing with God's Plan if it can increase worker produtivity, docility, combat capabilities, and who the hell knows what else?  And the Worse?  The Worst?
Our OS Shall Come From Redmond.  Forever.

And when we're all running insecure, buggy, crappy Microsoft Windoze 2020 in our cybereyes, we will get hacked by people who project a graphic over their own faces that says "What I thought I'd do was, I'd pretend to be one of those deaf-mutes."  And we'll be blinded by popup window instant message spam inside our visual cortices at critical moments while driving, and die.

LOL LOL CYBER

thats soo cool! i always thought it would be awsome to be able to plug my eyes directly into a computer. you dont need to have an unsecured wireless network and an ssh daemon with no root password running all the time!!

>>10

I was just thinking that. ;-)

Call me when I can download my mind into another body

>>10

I'd welcome it, because I'd be one of the people who knows how to secure theirs eyes - and how to get those who don't. It'd be so cool to actually do that.

Still trying to find the magazine.  Popular Science/Mechanics, Wired, or National Geographic maybe, circa 2003

>>10
goatsecx'ing peoples minds perhaps?

Anyway, I did see something like #3 described, it was on a regular science show on 'the paid for by govt' channel

You know, it really doesn't seem so far off that we will be able to have ocular implants for the blind/bored.
In theory, if we had the means to decode the signals being sent through the optic nerve and we had the technology to interface with the nerve itself, the only thing standing in the way would be creating a capture device small enough to fit in the eye socket with enough resolution.
This is ultimately the problem with artificial eyes: creating a capture device that is able to prove a high enough resolution to view reality with.
Instead of trying to make a digital eye, perhaps we should look into developing an organic eye that is either the same or superior to our current eyes.
Then again, you have to realize that we are very complex beings that have evolved over millions of years.  I honestly do not know, but the ultimate limitations may be the bandwidth of the optic nerve itself or the processing power of the visual cortex.
Whatever the case, In 10-20 years we will probably know the answers if not sooner.

can my eyes get dead pixels? Could you imagine though, people being born to then have their natural eyes replaces with new eyes so their vision will be better? Kinda creepy if you ask me.

You know, Science in all respect, but what >>19 said DOES seem creepy to me.

I wan to wait till they make an x-ray vision version of it

>>21

Wouldn't happen, as it is the only thing people can see with the implant are outlines of objects with white dots.

This is old news. The guy they were probably looking at is doing his work in Germany due to the stricter FDA regulations here. He's placing crude sheets of electrodes on the surface of the visual cortex to directly stimulate it. The end result is seeing several white dots that outline objects. This posses several problems. It bypasses all of the processing that visual information goes through before arriving at the cortex. Therefore, good sight can never be restored this way. There is another person (don't remember the name) who actually is working on using the optic nerve which usually is still intact in blind people. This is ideal because it's less invasive and allows for preprocessing by the brain, which will allow MUCH more information to be implyed from less source data.

>>18
The bandwidth of the optic nerve is very very high. It's really slow data transfer, but considering that it's basicly a parallel bus of many thousands of bits.... yeah you get the idea.

>>24
so when u see the truck, u'd probably be already limping.  or when u're screaming over ur bloody half-torn leg, u start to see a truck and understand why u had to scream
's that it?

>>25
What?

>>24
re: slow data transfer
so when u see the truck, u'd probably be already limping.  or when u're screaming over ur bloody half-torn leg, u start to see a truck and understand why u had to scream
's that it?

>>27
It's not THAT slow. It's on the order of I think around 100 ms, which is really slow when you figure we refure to computer data transfer in ns

This thread has more than entertained my imagination. I'd love to see this technology increase and help the blind out.

Everyone deserves to have all of their senses...can't get the full spectrum of life's beauty if they don't.

>>22

Maybe >>21 was thinking about infra-red vision.

actually, wasnt there a a guy on discovery health (years ago) who lost his eyes somehow and a whack doctor pulled out a tooth or some bone, rounded it, made some weird lens in the center, then implanted the thing in the guys face... the dude had this weird redish looking eye thing and was able to see (to some degree, the dude could drive anyway).. (and yeah, his optic nerve was still intact)
>>18
agreed, an organic eye could be more reasonable (at the moment anyway)