Tag: cyborg

DARPA Hybrid Insect MEMS

The HI-MEMS program is aimed at developing tightly coupled machine-insect interfaces by placing micro-mechanical systems inside the insects during the early stages of metamorphosis. These early stages include the caterpillar and the pupae stages. Since a majority of the tissue development in insects occurs in the later stages of metamorphosis, the renewed tissue growth around the MEMS

Cochlear implants

100s of people have had their implants replaced over the years, and so far there is no evidence that removing the electrodes and replacing them causes problems. But if the trend of innovation with these devices continues, people may have several replacements over the course of their lives.

on the challenges of upgrading yourself
2013-05-26: and then there are assholes out there against human augmentation.

Bionic eyes

Want

Engineers at the UW have for the first time used manufacturing techniques at microscopic scales to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights. “Looking through a completed lens, you would see what the display is generating superimposed on the world outside. This is a very small step toward that goal, but I think it’s extremely promising.”

2008-01-24: I am really impressed. I only learned about this last week myself. Either I am becoming mainstream or the Economist has a very good nose of what is going on 🙂

Contact lenses are good at correcting vision. That, however, is not enough for Babak Parviz. Dr Parviz wants to get them to provide information, too. His model is the “head-up” displays of useful information on the windscreens of aircraft. Putting such displays into lenses might be valuable for both soldiers and civilians, but shrinking the technology to the point where it could be done has proved hard. Dr Parviz revealed that he was getting close.

2008-03-13: Retinal implants

A bionic device the size of a pencil eraser – the labor of 20 years for a group of visionary Hub doctors and scientists – is offering hope that some forms of blindness could be alleviated within a few years. The Boston Retinal Implant Project is one of 22 programs around the world working to restore vision to the degenerative blind. Their work: a bio-electronic implant that delivers images to the brain via a connector the width of a human hair.

2015-05-28: That’s a quick surgery

The tiny Bionic Lens would be inserted into the eye during an 8-minute surgery where the patient’s sight would be corrected instantly

Future Bionic lens could also include projection systems that will give the user capabilities of projecting their phone screen, or integrating NASA technologies to allow for better focusing resolution than anything seen before, or even installing a system that allows for slow drug delivery inside the eye.

2021-11-07: Retina stimulation

Our research allows us to bypass the damaged light-sensitive cells and stimulate the pathways that lead to the brain with tiny bursts of electricity. We send electrical impulses to specific locations within the eye. A spot of light is perceived and patterns can be formed. If we are successful in our research, this pattern vision can give blind people sight again.

2023-05-06: Science Eye

In genetic diseases, such as retinitis pigmentosa or age-related macular degeneration, abnormalities in the layer of photoreceptors in the retina ultimately lead to their death. With the photoreceptors lost, light signals can no longer be translated to electrical signals, resulting in blindness. While the photoreceptors are lost in retinitis pigmentosa, the RGCs — and other cells in the retina — remain intact. The brain can still decode light signals. The idea behind the Science Eye is to modify these RGCs to become photoreceptive so they can be stimulated, by light, and send those signals to the brain.
Imagine a Science Eye implanted in a person with perfect vision. It might stimulate the brain in such a way that the person sees specific images or places, via fine control of the RGCs. You could see and interact with an entire world that isn’t there. It’s kind of like plugging in to a simulation, a virtual world plugged directly in to your eye. Alter the brain, alter reality.

Gaining Hearing

Michael Chorost became a cyborg on October 1, 2001, the day his new ear was booted up. His hearing was routinely upgraded with new software. A brilliant dispatch from the technological frontier, Rebuilt is also an ode to sound. Whether Chorost is adjusting his software in a desperate attempt to make the world sound “right” again, exploring the neurobiology of the ear, or reflecting on the simple pleasure of his mother’s voice, he invites us to think about what we hear — and how we experience the world — in an altogether new way.

Subcellular Remote-Control Interfaces

The breakthrough nanoradio consists of a single carbon-nanotube molecule that serves simultaneously as all the essential components of a radio — antenna, tunable band-pass filter, amplifier and demodulator. “I’m totally amazed that it works so well. Making individual components are good breakthroughs, but the holy grail was putting it all together. So we’re ecstatic that we were able to achieve that full integration.”

The radio opens the possibility of creating radio-controlled interfaces on the subcellular scale, which may have applications in the areas of medical and sensor technology.