Blind patient reads words stimulated directly onto the retina (advance, cameras, format)

[Brian.Pearson]

"In this clinical test with a single blind patient, we bypassed the camera that is the usual input for the implant and directly stimulated the retina. Instead of feeling the braille on the tips of his fingers, the patient could see the patterns we projected and then read individual letters in less than a second with up to 89% accuracy," explains researcher Thomas Lauritzen, lead author of the paper.

[Josseppie]

I wonder if this could be used for games and virtual reality?

[Brian.Pearson]

Originally Posted by Josseppie

I wonder if this could be used for games and virtual reality?

I asked them. We'll see if they respond. They don't always do so, but we can hope.

[Brian.Pearson]

Originally Posted by Josseppie

I wonder if this could be used for games and virtual reality?

His reply:

Hi Brian,
It's a medical device. It's only approved for severely blind patients in Europe, and not approved for commercial use (yet) in the US. So there's no chance you would be allowed use it in seeing people. Plus with 60 electrodes it's very crude vision, so why would you? (Plus it costs ~$100K).
For the patients, you could argue that showing braille if they are looking at regular text is a sort of virtual reality.

Cheers,
Thomas

Maybe sometime down the road, blind people will see things they had never imagined.

[Josseppie]

Thanks.

With how information technology advances at a exponential rate that someday might come sooner then he thinks. By 2020 maybe?

[Bulldogdad]

Geordi is that you?

I suspect within 25 years many of the blind will have limited sight.

[Josseppie]

I am more optimistic then you. I think within 15 years the blind will be able to see. Why? Exponential advancement.

[harhar]

There are so many options here and I think it will only be a handful of years until we have enhanced/cured blindness.

[Brian.Pearson]

Maybe stem cells will play a part?

[harhar]

Originally Posted by Brian.Pearson

Maybe stem cells will play a part?

Yeah, stem cells, nanotechnology, improvements in smaller photon/light receptor/cell technology.

I was even thinking about how instead of "fixing" the retina, you could go straight into the brain; effectively replacing the eyes with cameras.