/ News
Bionic contact lenses turn touch into vision
Much in the way Braille allows people who are blind to “see” the written word, a bionic contact lens invented by Israeli researcher Prof. Zeev Zalevsky “presses” images onto the surface of the eye to help the brain decipher through touch what the wearer is looking at.
The lens, still in a prototype stage, uses electrical signals sent to it from a small transponder, clipped to a pair of glasses or downloaded to a smartphone. A regular off-the-shelf camera, like the one inside a phone, “looks” at a crosswalk, items for sale in the grocery store, or at a loved one’s face, and transmits the encoded image via the lens to the wearer’s cornea. The image gets translated into a tactile sensation that can be interpreted visually.
“The cornea has the highest density of tactile sensors in the human body,” the Bar-Ilan University professor tells ISRAEL21c.
“There are 600 times more sensors in your cornea than on fingertips which are used to touch and read Braille. And since there are so many tactile sensors in the eyes, one can actually sense and ‘feel’ an image at a very high resolution, helping you really see with your eyes when you are blind,” he says.
Zalevsky says the sensation is similar to feeling a person’s face with one’s hands to understand how they look. “We can do the same by touching projected images from the camera onto the cornea of your eye.”
Short learning curve
If the lens lives up to its promise, it could go way beyond helping people read. Best of all, it is non-invasive.
This approach differs from artificial retinas being developed by companies including Second Sight. Artificial retinas use an impact camera connected with electrodes directly to the visual nerves of the eye. However, the connection holds for just a few years, and those born without a developed visual cortex cannot benefit from this solution. It is also invasive and provides images at very low resolution of only a few pixels, says Zalevsky.
Healthy eyes see at a resolution of about one megapixel. The bionic lenses could provide a resolution of tens of thousands of pixels.
Prototype of the bionic contact lens invented in Israel.
This new Israeli device still needs to pass clinical trials. But prototypes have been tested on healthy people. After a few minutes of learning how to associate actual images with the sensations they felt on their fingertips, they could actually “see” using the bionic contact lens.
“After a learning curve, people could recognize a house, a door, a car, even just after a short while wearing this technology,” says Zalevsky.
The revolutionary product, developed with Tel Aviv University’s Prof. Michael Belkin and Yevgeny Beiderman, has more than humanitarian and medical applications. Fitted with an infrared camera, it also has the potential to help law enforcers see in complete darkness, says Zalevsky.
Other Israeli technology for the blind
Zalevsky and the tech-transfer company at the university are hoping for a $1 million to $2 million investment so that a full system and fabrication process could be started. A beta version could be ready within two years.
The contact lens would be completely different from the “Google Glass for the blind” being developed by Israeli researcher Shy Shoham using visual sensors in the retina. However, both researchers say their solutions can work together.
“The Bar-Ilan device concept,” Shoham tells ISRAEL21c, “is what is called sensory substitution — you replace one sense (vision) with another (touch on the cornea). What we’re working on is a retinal prosthesis that tries to artificially activate the original sense of vision. These different approaches are complementary.”
Another Israeli invention, OrCam, is an image-processing/computer vision device that identifies verbally what the wearer is pointing at.
Israelis are also developing new tools using sound and joysticks to help the blind see.
Source: http://israel21c.org/technology/bionic-contact-lenses-turn-touch-into-vision/
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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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