
"Eyeborg" Replaces Eye With Functioning Wireless Video Camera - aaronbrethorst
http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/26/video-eyeborg-replaces-eye-with-functioning-wireless-video-camera/
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cal5k
Sweet! I've known Rob for a little while - it's good to see that he's finally
created an eye-camera that doesn't explode.

Rob is a master of PR... I'm constantly amazed at the publicity he's able to
drum up (even for the longest time when all he had were a couple of components
that could, in theory, be assembled into an eye camera).

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nawariata
Reminds me of a man who was actually able to get artificial vision through a
camera wired directly to his brain. The article is over a decade old, makes me
wonder what happened to that technology.

[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0YUG/is_2_10/ai_n1860...](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0YUG/is_2_10/ai_n18609498/)

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Maci
Per Wikipedia, Dr. Dobelle passed away in 2004 and donated his research,
Assumption would be that a very small team of researchers are doing what they
do best.

Src: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_prosthesis#Dobelle_Eye>

"Still in the developmental phase, upon the death of Dr. Dobelle, selling the
eye for profit was ruled against in favor of donating it to a publicly funded
research team."

While on topic, Also see BrainPort. A tongue display unit. Despite the name it
requires no invasive surgery.

<http://vision.wicab.com/technology/>

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protagonist_h
The more interesting technology is contact lenses augmented with "mini LED
screen" like in this article:
[http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/bionics/augmented-
realit...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/bionics/augmented-reality-in-a-
contact-lens)

This could actually be used to create a "bionic UI." Image Google Maps
projected into your eye, as you walk around unfamiliar neighborhood. Hungry?
With a blink of an eye you pull up Yelp reviews for nearby restaurants. Want
your friends to see that tasty-looking dish? Double-blink and the picture is
on facebook.

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gaius
FTA:

 _What’s yet to be accomplished with an artificial eye is hooking it up
effectively to the visual cortex, and that is still years away from being
practical_

So it's not really "replacing" the eye at all.

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kingkawn
how long is the battery life?

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trebor
At least he can pull it out and replace the battery. ;)

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mirkules
Which means it won't be sold by Apple. It's a shame too, because it's the
first true iProduct.

Edit: I am a bad man.

On a serious note, I wonder what the power source actually is? WiFi and video
must take a lot of juice to run...

Also, is anyone else kind of freaked out that he's touching things and then
putting the "eye" in the eye socket with dirty hands? I never had the
opportunity to see what an empty eye socket looks like, but I imagine it's got
a lot of exposed flesh prone to infection, no?

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kellishaver
Nah, it's not really that big of a deal. It's a little sensitive to irritation
from foreign debris, but that's about it.

I don't think I've ever had an infection in mine and have probably only
scratched/irritated it 4-5 times in the past 16 years. Usually that only
happens when something gets behind the prosthesis and rubs. More often, I find
that I've given myself a black eye in my sleep, because a hard prosthetic
makes it easier to bruise the lid than having a soft, squishy eyeball in
there.

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kingkawn
Also I'd be interested to look at if the relatively benign radiation from
electronic devices becomes much more significant when operating inside of the
skull.

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mirkules
Good point. I would look at wireless sound devices that fit inside the ear
canal (if there are such things). My hunch is that hearing loss is more common
than loss of eyeballs, so there are probably more experimental devices and
more studies conducted with those.

