Bionic Eyes for Partially Blind

People with limited sight can now get an  Argus II bionic eye from Second Sight.

the unit consists of glasses with a camera installed.  The camera sends information to a processor which in turn sends the heavily processed video to an implant located in the eye which stimulates the eye's remaining photo receptors. 

Though we have seen similar systems and this appears to be variations on a theme, in truth it is a very inventive use and utilization of the equipment.  Check the video below.

Man With Bionic Leg Climbs into History

Zac Vawter along with what is being called the world's first neural-controlled bionic leg, completed a goal for himself of climbing the 103 floors of Willis Tower in Chicago.

Vawter has only to thinking about moving his leg and sensors and motors take over the task of moving the bionic right limb.  Though this approach has been used previously in hand and arm applications but this is the first time it has been implemented in a leg.

From the WPTV.com website:

• (the climb was part of the) fourth annual SkyRise Chicago fundraiser was the first public test of the technology.  

Zac successfully made the 103 floor climb of  the Willis tower (formally called the Sears Tower) of Chicago in 53 minutes, 9 seconds. 

Vawter has been with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago for a little over a year in hopes of replacing a leg he lost three years ago in a motorcycle accident. 

WPTV story page here
 

Walking about two miles a day, Claire Lomas finished the London Marathon 16 days after the race began. Claire, paralysed from the chest down following a horse riding accident in 2007, completing the course with the help of a powered exo - framework or power suit if you will. In doing so, she becomes the first person to finish a marathon using a powered exoskeleton or in this case a ReWalk suit.

Below is a video of her last few feet of the race.

Well, I replaced the video with one from youtube. I didn't title it though, that's a bit sappy....

Predictive Bionics

Here is an interesting video I found on Kim Komando's page - Concerning boinic limb prosthetics.

Until now, prosthetics have been either passive or manually controlled by the wearer. Vanderbilt researchers created a bionic limb that can predict the wearer's movement. It makes the motion much more natural.

Check out the very natural movements possible, in this YouTube video

Here is a new lower-limb prosthetic that allows amputees to walk without the leg-dragging gait characteristic of conventional artificial legs.

Seeing With Your Tongue

There is some new age wo wo stuff going on, but if you get past the spacey music and see what is going on, there is a core of an idea there that makes sense. From the article:

• Watch as Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to climb Everest and the Seven Summits, experiments with the Brainport Vision Device, a revolutionary new technology enabling a blind person to see with his tongue. Mounted on Erik's head is a small video camera which translates visual information to a credit card-size tongue display. Four-hundred tiny pixels present electrical patterns on his tongue, which Erik's brain then interprets as a visual picture in three-dimensional space. He uses the device to read words and numbers on note cards, to play tic-tac-toe and stone-paper-scissors with his daughter, and to rock climb.
  

To learn more about Erik, go to www.TouchTheTop.com.

New Bionic Hand in Action!

I knew that artificial limbs were really taking great (excuse the pun) strides, however I had never seen this hand in action. The quickness and range of motion is truly amazing. Check out the short video of it in action.

A Bionic Leg: Treatment for Stroke Victims

Commonly held medical wisdom concerning stroke victims is that once the patient has reached the one year anniversary of their event, very little if any, further progress is obtainable. It seems however that a start up in Sunnyvale CA believes differently.

Tibion has developed a battery-powered robotic, exoskeleton to aid patients in walking. The "Bionic" leg is not a full time device though. Tibion believes that if a patients who wear the device for 15 minutes at a time, over a three times a week period will make significant improvements, even after a protracted period of little or no therapy.

Wearing the Tibion leg promotes neuroplasticity (the brain's ability to rewire itself to repair damage) by providing feedback to the brain, this triggers the brain to lay down new pathways around the damaged areas.

Read the complete article on how the device works at San Francisco Xconomy

Monkey uses brain power to feed itself

This video from NewScientist on cybernetic devices is interesting but creepy none the less. The film documents test with monkeys that allowed them to feed themselves with robotic arms controlled completely with brainwaves.

First Successful 'Bionic Eye' inplanted!

Surgeons have carried out the first operations in Britain using a pioneering “bionic eye”. The device was installed into the eye of a blind patient at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. The first of its kind — known as the Argus II retinal implant, incorporates a video camera and transmitter mounted on a pair of glasses. This is linked to an artificial retina, which transmits moving images along the optic nerve to the brain and enables the patient to discriminate rudimentary images of motion, light and dark.

Complete story in the Times online

Bluetooth-equipped prosthetic legs help double amputee walk again

From Engadget.com comes a very interesting "bionicique" development:

As we've seen, there's plenty of different solutions out there for controlling prosthetic limbs, but the artificial legs now helping Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua Bleill walk certainly have to rank up there with the most inventive, and they don't even rely on brain control. Instead, the legs employ tried and true Bluetooth technology, which has previously been used to allow a single prothestic leg to mimic the individual's other leg but, in this case, is being use to allow one prosthetic leg to mimic the other. To control them, Bleill simply applies force with his thigh muscles to get things moving or slow them down, with built-in motors in the legs allowing him to walk longer without getting tired. Click here for the CNN video

New Contact Lenses Go Bionic

From LiveScience online click here for complete article

If you've ever wanted to be the Bionic Woman or a Terminator, new research may at least let you see with their eyes. Scientists have taken the first step toward creating digital contact lenses that can zoom in on distant objects and display useful facts. For the first time, engineers have installed an electronic circuit on a regular contact lens. The difficult part was grafting tiny electrical circuits, only a few nanometers thick onto the contact lenses, which are made of organic materials. Eventually, the technique could yield a plethora of gadgets. Perhaps drivers and pilots could see their direction and speed projected across their view, or people could surf the Web without looking at an external device's screen. Video gamers could immerse themselves in game landscapes directly in front of their eyes. Maybe the technique could even create sight aids for visually-impaired people.

submitted by Shaun A. Saunders

Katee Sarkoff walks away from Bionic Woman

Oh the rumor mill is off and running with the goings on with the cast of NBC's The Bionic Woman.

Seems the bad bionic bitch Katee Sarkoff had a meeting with the producers and rumor has it that she will not be returning to the set when the writer's strike ends. Now I know, she was never meant to be a steady on the show, but truth be told, I think Katee really brought the show up! Now considering the dismal ratings that TBW has been netting, I can understand Sarkoff's concern. But I have to say that Sarkoff may be the only saving grace that TBW really can field. The rest of the cast really is plain vanilla, Sarkoff's character at least had some depth. Wonder how long it will take the other rats to scurry off......

amputees can now "feel" with new limbs

From AFP via Boing Boing

I have often said and felt that a subset of science fiction is stories about people with damage due to accident, disease or defect who by one mode or another are "enhanced" to live a normal or above normal lives. like, say Cyborg (better known to tv views as the six million dollar man) Flowers for Algernon, The Ship Who Sang, Mars, The Demolished Man, Kiln People and so on. These stories ring a bit truer for me than others maybe but I really think a blending of the human body with augmentations of one type or another has a very real future. One very real subset of this is advancements in bio augmentation hardware and prosthetics. The closer they get to true "bionics" the hard its going to be to tell where the "original" ends and the "repair" begins.

In the article listed here, advancements in the field of sensing are discussed. Some researchers have developed a technique of rerouting nerves from amputated limbs to regain some sense of touch etc. The scientists doing the research suggest their success in reviving such specific sensation identified with missing limbs could lead to establishing nervous system feedback in prosthetic devices like artificial hands, arms, feet and legs. In a very real sense, this research could lead to people having normal sensations through their replacement limbs. Very science ficiony if I do say so myself.

Darpa working on power exoskeleton

Backpacks are a mainstay of soldiers, hikers, firefighters and others who have to lug heavy loads, often over rough terrain where wheeled vehicles cannot traverse. But hauling them can be quite the chore, limiting wearers' mobility, especially over long distances. Scientists at M.I.T. Media Lab's Biomechatronics Group have, with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), developed an exoskeleton that promises to not only lessen the load of weary travelers but also to advance research that will ultimately lead to robotic limbs that improve the strength and mobility of amputees.

Thanks to Shaun Saunders for the post


image: Courtesy of the MIT Media Lab

New Bionic Woman clip

Tech Republic /Geekend have posted a two minutes, 18 seconds clip of the new Bionic Woman pilot debuting this fall on NBC. It stars Michelle Ryan as the new, nanotech-enhanced Jamie Summers squaring off against a bionic villainess played by Katee Sackhoff, better known as Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica remake on the Sci-Fi Channel. From what I see, don't expect your daddy's bionic babe....aint happening. I suspect that the clip is much darker than the show, but even still, this is going to be a rough and gritty ride that in no way resembles the earlier show of the same name. The clip closes with Summers saying...."I know what I am capable of now....send who you want....and I will bury them one after the other." Ouch! Serious Painkiller attitude! I know that I have been turned around a bit by this clip. Click the links, see what you think.

Sackhoff Signs Onto 'Bionic Woman' Pilot

From the Syfyportal blog

Well if you were wondering what Katee Sackhoff, late of "Battlestar Galactica" as the hotshot pilot Starbuck, was up to post Galactica, it seems she has signed on to NBC's "Bionic Woman" remake, which is being led by BSG's Eick. The pilot will star Michelle Ryan as bionic woman Jaime Sommers, and it seems Sackhoff will not appear until the second series of episodes. It's not clear what Sackhoff's role would be outside of the fact that she will be an evil bionic woman. She apparently is being billed as a guest star which could mean only a one-time appearance.

Trials for 'bionic' eye implants

A bionic eye implant that could help restore the sight of millions of blind people could be available to patients within two years.

US researchers have been given the go-ahead to implant the prototype device in 50 to 75 patients.

The Argus II system uses a spectacle-mounted camera to feed visual information to electrodes in the eye.

he new devices work by implanting an array of tiny electrodes into the back of the retina.

A camera is used to capture pictures, and a processing unit, about the size of a small handheld computer and worn on a belt, converts the visual information into electrical signals.

These are then sent back to the glasses and wirelessly on to a receiver just under the surface of the front of the eye, which in turn feeds them to the electrodes at the rear.

The whole process happens in real time.

posted by Shaun A. Saunders

New Bionic Woman Series

Solar Flare reports that NBC Universal are set to produce a remake of the 70's sci-fi show The Bionic Woman. the executive producer will be David Eick who also produces the SciFi Channel's Battlestar Galactica .

Eick has teamed with writer Laeta Kalogridis (Birds of Prey) to work on what he describes as a completely reconceptualized Bionic Woman. The new series will explore amongst other things nanontechnlogy and also the role of professional women in contemporary society.