Common Paradox Tech Blog

How might one repair a cyborg’s eye in the future? Why, with this handy eyeball removing tool. How does one forget what’s seen in this image? Macallan 12 years, neat, that’s how. [Bloomers and Bows via Boing Boing Gadgets]

Photochromic lenses that allow you to walk from inside to outside without putting on UV-filtering lenses have been around for decades. But the technology is just making its way to contacts.

Traditionally, these light-to-dark lenses have been constructed by coating a normal lens with a photochromic dye. When UV light hits the dye, the individual molecules expand, darkening the lens and absorbing light. Coating contacts, however, doesn’t work so well.

So researchers in Singapore have laced contacts with a matrix on nano tunnels filled with these photochromic dyes. Not only has the team been successful in producing transition contacts; these contacts darken in the presence of UV light faster than standard lenses (just 10 to 20 seconds).

Researchers are now working on isolating the photochromic material to just corneal region of your eye, granting you all of the UV filtering without turning your entire iris black.

But until they graft the timeless style of a Wayfarer onto my eyeball, I’ll pass. [Technology Review and image]

This week, Gizmodo is exploring the enhanced human future in a segment we call This Cyborg Life. It’s about what happens when we treat our body less as a sacred object and more as what it is: Nature’s ultimate machine.

CWmike writes “Researchers at MIT have developed a microchip that could, one day, enable blind people to regain some level of vision. By combining wireless technology, eyeglasses equipped with a camera, and the chip, they should be able to restore at least some vision to people who suffer from retinitis pigmentosa or age-related macular degeneration, two of the leading causes of blindness, the scientists say. The chip, which is designed to be attached to the eyeball, would pick up images sent from the camera and electrically stimulate the nerve cells that normally carry visual input from the retina to the brain. The chip is sealed in a titanium case to keep water from leaking in and damaging its circuitry. At this point, the technology is not expected to restore normal vision, but MIT said it should provide the ability to navigate around a room or walk down a sidewalk. ‘Anything that could help them see a little better and let them identify objects and move around a room would be an enormous help,’ said Shawn Kelly, a researcher in MIT’s Research Laboratory for Electronics. ‘If they can recognize faces of people in a room, that brings them into the social environment as opposed to sitting there waiting for someone to talk to them.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Miruko is a camera robot in the shape of an eyeball capable of tracking objects and faces. According to its creators, it can be used for augmented reality games, security, and navigation. According to me, it sucks people’s souls.

In this particular game, Miruko scans the real world for virtual monsters (ooook), fixing its aim when it finds one. Then the player can capture the monster using the iPhone camera, which is connected via Wi-Fi to the robot. [Pink Tentacle]

MIT researchers are developing a microchip that adheres to an eye to revive sight, and it could begin human trials within three years.

The chip, encased in titanium to withstand the tortures of the human body for 10 years, sticks to the outside of your eyeball. The eye’s lens still seems to be used, but light strikes implanted electrodes that in turn cause the chip to fire image information directly into the optic nerve.

Users will still need to wear glasses, but not for the reasons you’d think. The glasses house a power source to transmit necessary energy to the sight chip wirelessly.

Researchers admit that the footage won’t be a 1:1 replacement for normal vision, especially at first when trial participants will help refine MIT’s algorithms. But the device should theoretically enable someone to navigate a room and even recognize faces, making social tasks quite a bit easier. [Wired via Newlaunches]