/ News
Device Trains Blind People To 'See' By Listening
Researchers have found that newly blind people can learn to "see" with their ears. The key: technology called sensory substitution devices (SSDs) that can convert visual stimuli into aural representations of the surroundings, allowing users to reacquire lost abilities; a blind man who drops his keys might be able to locate them.
The devices could eventually duplicate "the phenomenological experience of vision" in blind and partially blind patients, the researchers say, and could obviate the need for costly eye surgeries and other treatments.
Previous studies have shown that SSDs help congenitally blind people navigate their environments. This most recent study, led by Michael Proulx from the University of Bath and published in Frontiers In Cognitive Science, instead tested how quickly and effectively blindfolded, sighted people could use one such device, the vOICe. The point? People who've been blind most of their lives typically compensate for their lack of vision with sharpened hearing and other senses. Not so with the newly blind. The researchers wanted to prove that their device could work on those who've just lost their sight, too.
The vOICe consists of a backpack carrying a laptop, some sunglasses equipped with a camera, and earbuds. Here's how it works, according to the study:
"The vOICe converts images captured by a camera into "soundscapes" delivered to the user through headphones at a default rate of one soundscape per second. Each soundscape is a left to right scan of the visual scene with frequency representing the image's vertical axis and loudness representing brightness... The user therefore experiences a series of "snapshots" passing from the left to the right ear."
A simple example would be a black screen with four slanted white lines, a bit like this (but with inverted colors):
The "soundscape" for that image would be four distinct, loud bleeps, each with an escalating pitch. Actually navigating the big outside world would be challenging, but--with enough practice and skill--perhaps doable. One user described it as "Like figuring out where you're walking in the dark," the study notes. For those who learn best through experience, this video does a good job of simulating it (warning: harsh, loud noises):
"Vision is measured in terms of acuity: 20/20 vision means that you can see from 20 feet what a normal person can see (often in terms of the eye chart); 20/40 means you can see from 20 feet what a normal person would be able to see from 40 feet. In the U.S., legal blindness is 20/200 (or worse)."
In Proulx's study, blindfolded subjects equipped with the vOICe (or just headphones playing the associated sound profile, depending on the experiment) were asked to report on the orientation of E’s from a Snellen eye chart on a computer screen in front of them. The size of the E's corresponds to the acuity rating, as this chart displays. The vOICe allowed most subjects to report with 75 percent accuracy at an acuity of 20/2464-20/4682, with an absolute upper-bound of 20/408 (which means the letters had to be pretty big for them to accurately say which direction they faced). Keeping in mind both that this isn't actual vision and that these are inexperienced users, the results are promising, the researchers say. Of course, there's a big difference between using the device in a controlled lab setting and actually taking it out on a noisy, crowded city street. And I bet the constant, screechy noise would take some adjusting to. Nevertheless, I’m sure this guy is intrigued.
Source: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-07/synesthesia-blind
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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