"Eyeborg" Replaces Eye With Functioning Wireless Video Camera | Hacker News Reader

"Eyeborg" Replaces Eye With Functioning Wireless Video Camera

techcrunch.com

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).

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...

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/

The more interesting technology is contact lenses augmented with "mini LED screen" like in this article: http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/bionics/augmented-realit...

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.

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.

how long is the battery life?

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

That's interesting. Is it mostly scar tissue inside the eye socket, then? Also, I would have thought one takes out the prosthetic eye when going to sleep, like a contact lens. But if bruising is a problem, why aren't they made from softer / squishier materials?

I wouldn't say there's a lot of scar tissue. It's basically just skin. There are two types of prosthetic eyes. The one I have, the more "traditional" prosthesis, is two parts. There's a clear sphere made of medical grade plastic implanted in the back of my eye socket and then there is skin and muscle over top of that. The prosthesis sits in the eye on top of this sphere. The newer variety has a post that attaches to this to allow for more eye movement.

If you're not one to be easily bothered by such things, I've upload a couple of (somewhat blurry, my apologies) pictures.

The eye socket: http://i.imgur.com/DogTz.jpg

The Prosthesis: http://i.imgur.com/JyQOL.jpg

I assume it's not made from softer materials because they would be more porous and therefore more prone to irritation and infection.

I know some people who take their eye out at night and I've heard different opinions from different doctors, but the general consensus from both my eye doctor and my ocularist is that unless there's irritation to leave it in and leave it alone. Occasionally, during allergy season, I'll need to take it out and rinse it off, but for the most part, I just leave it be and it's fairly self-cleaning. I get it professionally polished once a year and the prosthetic itself needs to be replaced every 5-10yrs.

Bruising isn't a huge issue, but it's the most frequent "complication" I have and is something I probably end up doing every few months. I can be a bit of a restless sleeper, though. :)

Hey, thanks for the pics, I appreciate your effort behind your explanations. Good point about it being porous and prone to infection - I guess that's the unique thing about prosthetic eyes: they are worn both inside and outside the body, so must be robust enough to withstand environmental elements, and also be safe to be inside the eye socket.

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