Bionic eyes

San Francisco artist Tanya Vlach plans to replace an eye lost in an accident with a webcam which she can control by blinking, if she can get someone to design it for her. That fascinating story is here. But this idea is not as new as you'd think: Canadian filmmaker Rob Spence, who also has a prosthetic eye, is retrofitting it with a camera so he can use it to make films. Wired has an article on him here.

Both of these people will be using their eye cameras to film with, not to see with, but the Daily Mail has this article on pioneering work providing digital imaging implants into totally blind patients, which provides rudimentary visual information to the retinal nerves - true bionic sight!

"American Linda Moorfoot was totally blind for more than a decade before becoming one of the first patients to test the new technology.
She told Sky News: "When I go to the grandkids' hockey game or soccer game I can see which direction the game is moving in.
"I can shoot baskets with my grandson and I can watch my granddaughter dancing across the stage. I can see ... things! It's wonderful."

Read the whole article here.