DailyDirt: Restoring Sight
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
The visually impaired are a sizable group of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Some vision problems are easily corrected with glasses or contacts or various kinds of laser-based eye surgery. However, some retinal problems are much more difficult (or impossible) to treat. Retinal surgery isn't fun at all, but it can be the preferred option when given the choice between blindness and some amount of vision. Check out a few of these developments that could help people see a little bit more.- A prosthetic retina made from carbon nanotubes embedded in a flexible film could help restore vision to low-vision people someday. Researchers have tested this on lab animals and observed an ability to stimulate neurons -- which is a promising first step. [url]
- A 1.55 millimeter-thick contact lens system can activate a "zoom" function when the person wearing them winks. These contacts need to be paired with smart glasses to detect the winking and provide the telescopic zoom, so it's probably not something people with 20/20 vision would want, but for people who have reduced eyesight (or folks who just like supervision gadgets), this could be really useful. [url]
- Another kind of prosthetic retina has infrared-sensitive tiles (like CCD pixels) and a pair of glasses beaming a live infrared video feed onto them -- that stimulate nerves and ideally reproduce some kind of vision. Any kind of artificial retina implant needs to be unpowered (or powered wirelessly) because no one wants to have invasive eye surgery to charge batteries (or have the risk of an uncontrolled electrical discharge in an eye), so zapping retinas with infrared light seems like a reasonable solution -- especially if the pixel resolution can get close to 20/100 vision in an otherwise blind person. [url]
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: artificial retinas, blind, blindness, contact lenses, low vision, prosthetic retina, retinal implant, vision, visually impaired
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
stem cells offer some potential as well...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]