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Much has been reported recently about high tech glasses and bionic man style eyes, and even as more of a retinal "prosthesis", the Second Sight's bionic eye is contained within this news banner. It has been designed and as an implant to help patients diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa.
While being unable to give the kind of high definition vision our ' actual ' eye can provide the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System operates at a fairly impressive resolution of 60 pixels, sixty pixels that will noticeably aid a blind patient’s personal mobility which is undeniably a massive step in advancement therapy management.
The actual implant is a tiny system consisting of a wireless retinal implant that will literally just rest on the patients retina. Dedicated spectacles will allow the wearer to "see" images which is wirelessly delivered to a processing unit that the patient clips to their hip. Once processed the gathered data is processed and then returned back to the glasses which wirelessly transmit the data to the implant resting on the retina. The implant then electrically stimulates the photoreceptors which in turn simulates a coarse image. The patient learns how to interpret these light and dark images allowing them to navigate around and among obstacles.
The implant has already been approved for use here in Europe.