One-eyed woman wants techno-vision
Glass eye-cum-camcorder, please
A one-eyed woman has appealed for some gadget guidance to help her turn her artificial eye into a camcorder.
Tanya Vlach already wears a prosthetic eyeball, but she wants to know how best to turn it into a hi-tech peeper able to store video files, transmit wirelessly and snap still photos.
How can this gain camcorder capabilities?
In terms of recording capabilities, Vlach’s opted for the MPEG 4 format and she hopes to have a Mini SD card slot inside it for cards of up to 4GB. It should also have a 3x zoom – optical, of course.
With these features in place, it’s her vision that the eye will be able to record what she’d otherwise have seen naturally. Exactly why she wants this is a mystery, as she can still see perfectly well with her other, organic eye.
Nonetheless, once she’s captured some content, Vlach wants the freedom to move it to a PC by Bluetooth, Firewire, USB or memory card. The eye would be powered with a wireless charger.
She admittedly doesn’t have much knowledge about how all the required technology would fit together, but has suggested that the “installation” could be done whilst the prosthetic eye’s being made or slotted in afterwards through a series of drill holes.
Several readers have already suggested ways that her hi-tech eye could be developed. For example, someone posted a message on her blog that advocated using a wireless camera from a toy RC helicopter. Another reader said: “There’s no reason this can’t be done. I’m already going over it in my head and it is completely within the realm of current off-the-shelf technology.”
If you think you can help with Vlach’s request then check out her blog.
COMMENTS
First step, heh? @AC
"It's the first step towards developing a functional, artificial eye."
I think not (If it's the aim, this is a very stupid attempt)
"obviously interfacing it with the brain/optic nerve is another big step"
Actually the real big step would be to know wtf kind of signal should be sent to the optic nerve (provided said nerve did not degenerate after being severed, which I doubt). By the time we figure that out, I suspect there will be an "off the shelf" solution that could fit in a PFY's large blackhead. And by the time we figure out how to regrow a degenerate optic nerve from scratch (or how to interface a cam directly with the visual cortex), there will probably be an "off the shelf" solution to grow an organic eye from stem cells or something. Not to mention grafts. So if it's supposed to be "a step towards [an] artificial eye", it's stupid. If, as I suspect, it's supposed to be a way to take advantage of one's disability, it's quite clever and amusing.
Oh, great
When cameras became ubiquitous in mobile phones , the phones were barred from some public showers and change areas (at least here in OZ, *especially* in kid-oriented areas).
I can just see a security guard now checking people's eyes for showercams.
Actually...
She probably wants it so she can take tourist snaps in London without being hassled by the pigs or paranoid members of the public. She could use it to take photos in places like shopping centres without some plastic-card rent-a-pig stealing her camera and escorting her off the property.
Problem is, if too many people start going this route the freedom-haters will soon come up with some technology to detect people with cameras in their eyeballs and mikes in their ears. But it'll be good while it lasts...
If it was a bluetooth enabled eye/ camera...
I wonder if she could get hold of some video glasses and mod them to play the footage through the missing eye screen.
That way she could have binocular vision if she wanted, or whatever she wanted to see with whatever eye she wanted (I'd better stop this thinking I'm getting a headache.)
Also thinking of Jordi (?) from STNG and the idea of having a device that also detects IR etc, not just visible light.
Of course if the eye was fitted with wi-fi then the whiole family/ neighbourhood could watch :-)
ttfn
