The Wired article that someone else linked to says that the resolution was 32 x 32 (1024), if that's the same person.
The amazing part is that the brain quickly learns to interpret the signals and can create an image.
I wonder if the brains image is a higher resolution than the camera considering it's basically processing the raw data and can apply very complex "algorithms" to the data to present an image.
I wasn't saying the price was too high, just that it's interesting to think about how lucky we are to have sight for free and that people with not very much money would spend everything just for the chance to regain a small amount of vision.
There is more. Perhaps its better to encourage the research of methods that can restore vision partly. If you think about it, the low vision is workable to a lot of these people, who have known the complete darkness called blindness.
Maybe start off in the same manner as the television research. First black and white, low resolution then onwards to full sight. It shouldn't be "All or Nothing" always. Low cost procedures are really the need of the hour.
Some people do think like this indeed, but majority of people don't. Articles like this are nice reminders for this.
I'm not sure that the device itself is the costly part though (other than the research to develop it). The main cost right now seems to be the surgery, brain surgery ain't cheap, especially when it's experimental procedures. An easier surgery is really what is needed. If surgeons could just lift up the eye and clamp the device onto the optical nerve then the cost would decrease dramatically.
There are some research teams working on the lower cost method.
Most of the transplants are lower resolution to reduce device size (smaller computer components and battery). If you can perfect the lower resolution device then increasing the resolution and adding colors would be relatively easy.
I'm amazed that scientists can "talk" to the brain and how successful some of these procedures have been, truly fascinating times we live in.
It can't talk back to the brain unfortunately, but it's a step in the right direction.
http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/BTO/ was launched 5 days ago (NOT an April fools joke), usually DARPA does a pretty good job of rapidly advancing technology.
I guess the true holy-grail for this would be to pack in some "putty" into the eye-socket and let the eye re-grow based on your DNA, I doubt that will be available soon but a biological solution to blindness should definitely be explored as well.
I know the main problem right now is the fact that the eye's optical nerve can't regenerate. If it does works like optical fiber, maybe something could be made to mend the optical nerve using optical fiber.
Stem cell technology seems ever elusive, but still if not that, than this.
Thanks for the kickstarter and darpa link, it seems really interesting.
"A team at Boston Children’s Hospital reports a three-pronged intervention that not only got optic nerve fibers to grow the full length of the visual pathway (from retina to the visual areas of the brain), but also restored some basic elements of vision in live mice."
>Are there any similar devices that have been installed in people that have been more successful?
When I was following the retinal implant research several years ago, you'd typically give the patient a few dozen pixels of vision and then the electrodes and the neurons they're stimulating would drift out of sync.
It sounds like there's now a commercial product for people with severely limited vision (Argus) which claims to have stable implants over multiple years in hundreds of patients. Not sure what the quality is like though, and not sure if the technology generalizes to the fully blind (who may have entirely atrophied optic nerves).
Scaring probably caused the microelectrode array(MEA) to fail.
There is significant research going into MEAs and they are becoming much more viable for long term in vivo use.
Are there any similar devices that have been installed in people that have been more successful?
$100,000+ for 8 weeks of sight is very sad to think about.
What was the approximate resolution of the image that he saw?
WEAR YOUR SAFETY GLASSES!