Australian scientists are working on building a sophisticated device, computer-assisted, comparable to an artificial eye that allows blind people to perceive visual surroundings.
The project is being developed by researchers at Monash University, Australia, and human trials will begin in 2014.
The device consists of a tiny video camera – which acts as a hold – mounted inside the glasses.
Captured images are converted into electronic signals and transmitted to a chip implanted in the brain, the visual cortex, brain regions that form images.
Each patient will be implanted to 14 small plates, each with dimensions of 8×8 mm and comprising approx. 500,000 45,000 transistors and thin electrodes as a hair.
These plates will receive black and white, low resolution, from a processing unit connected to the camcorder, and will transmit the visual cortex.
This device could have a huge impact on blind people. In the first phase, researchers believe it could be used alongside traditional means to help these people (and especially cane or dog-guides), but hopes that by improving the time, the technology, it becomes powerful enough blind to provide a satisfactory visual perception of the world around them.
In the world there are currently approx. 160 million people blind.
Source: Mail Online
Intersting.keep the good worlk
Today, I went to the beach front with my kids. I found a sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She placed the shell to her ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her ear. She never wants to go back! LoL I know this is totally off topic but I had to tell someone!
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