A photo from open sources
The company developing the world’s first bionic eye, US Department of Health Authorization, Second Sight, “is currently working on its software update, so that the eyes of “Argus II” get a higher resolution, focus and the ability to enlarge the image. New eye software will even allow people to distinguish between colors, although initially the device is black and white.
Technically speaking, Argus II is a retinal prosthesis. Patients undergo a four-hour operation, during which they 60 electrodes are implanted in the macula – a section of the retina that provides central vision. These electrodes are connected to an antenna that connects wirelessly with a pair of glasses, equipped with a digital camera and signal processor. Camera captures the image of what the user is looking at, converts a picture into signals that the brain is able to understand, and translates them to the implant. As you can guess, 60 electrodes are not able to provide a person with high resolution view (it’s only 10×6 pixels), but it’s a huge step forward from complete blindness.
And now, thanks to a software update called “Acuboost”, Second Sight is ready to improve opportunities already installed implants. The latest version of this package gives artificial eyes higher resolution, possibility focus and zoom, as well as automatic brightness adjustment and color recognition. Formation phenomenon color vision is very interesting – technically, users his eyes do not have it at all (the cells of the eye that are responsible for color perception, they are destroyed by the disease that led to blindness). However, as it turned out, specific frequencies and delays in excitation of electrodes – which are individual for each user – can cause color perception. It’s by itself itself is an amazing breakthrough in understanding the coding system optical nerves, about which we still know very well very little.
At the same time, recently in Germany, the bionic eye “Alpha IMS ” received permission from the European Regulatory Commission. Alpha IMSIs a full-fledged bionic eye that provides vision thanks to the light that directly passes through it, which makes it much more flexible than Argus II. Alpha IMS has an impressive number of electrodes – 1,500 versus 60 – giving high-resolution vision for users. Technologically, this implant is simply magnificent, but in the foreseeable in the future you can only get one in Europe.
Time
