[Nfbmt] Wall street Journal.. January 28 edition, article about Argus II -- bionic eye development especially for RP and folk music fans

[Rik James]

Okay. The folk music fans? That was a joke. Sorry.
rik

http://news.voltaicsystems.com/article/04jgg7T7gM8IT

This link has the link to the full article from the January 28, 2013 edition 
of the Wall Street Journal.

The first paragraph says this....

The Quest To Create A Bionic Eye Gets Clearer
By Shirley S. Wang - The Wall Street Journal - Jan. 28, 2013


Restoring sight to the blind has proved particularly challenging for 
scientists, but a new technology combining an eye implant and 
video-camera-enabled glasses may soon be available in the U.S. Researchers 
have been pursuing the development of such a bionic eye for decades, in some 
cases spending hundreds of millions of dollars to tackle engineering 
challenges. One device designed to help people with a rare eye condition is 
awaiting U.S. regulatory approval. It is known as Argus II, made by Second 
Sight Medical Products Inc. of Sylmar, Calif. Other researchers, including 
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University, 
continue to work on what they believe are even more sophisticated versions. 
Second Sight's product uses what is known as a retinal prosthesis that 
bypasses the dead or damaged cells in the eye needed to detect light. 
Instead, the device reroutes visual data via the implant to parts of the eye 
that still work. Like other similar devices under development, it uses a 
video camera embedded in a pair of eyeglasses to collect visual input in the 
form of light and transmit it to the implant as an electrical signal. If 
Argus II is approved by the Food and Drug Administration, it would be the 
first retinal prosthesis to hit the market in the U.S. The device is already 
available in Europe. The patients most likely to benefit from these devices 
are those with retinitis pigmentosa, a rare disease that damages and kills 
the cells in the retina-a tissue layer at the back of the eye-that process 
light.  (snip snip. the article continues)