Posts
By JAMES RISEN
Published: June 13, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html
WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.
The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.
An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.
The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.
While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war.
“There is stunning potential here,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, said in an interview on Saturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.”
The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits dwarfs the size of Afghanistan’s existing war-bedraggled economy, which is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the United States and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion.
“This will become the backbone of the Afghan economy,” said Jalil Jumriany, an adviser to the Afghan minister of mines.
American and Afghan officials agreed to discuss the mineral discoveries at a difficult moment in the war in Afghanistan. The American-led offensive in Marja in southern Afghanistan has achieved only limited gains. Meanwhile, charges of corruption and favoritism continue to plague the Karzai government, and Mr. Karzai seems increasingly embittered toward the White House.
So the Obama administration is hungry for some positive news to come out of Afghanistan. Yet the American officials also recognize that the mineral discoveries will almost certainly have a double-edged impact.
Instead of bringing peace, the newfound mineral wealth could lead the Taliban to battle even more fiercely to regain control of the country.
The corruption that is already rampant in the Karzai government could also be amplified by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control of the resources. Just last year, Afghanistan’s minister of mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 million bribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine. The minister has since been replaced.
Endless fights could erupt between the central government in Kabul and provincial and tribal leaders in mineral-rich districts. Afghanistan has a national mining law, written with the help of advisers from the World Bank, but it has never faced a serious challenge.
“No one has tested that law; no one knows how it will stand up in a fight between the central government and the provinces,” observed Paul A. Brinkley, deputy undersecretary of defense for business and leader of the Pentagon team that discovered the deposits.
At the same time, American officials fear resource-hungry China will try to dominate the development of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth, which could upset the United States, given its heavy investment in the region. After winning the bid for its Aynak copper mine in Logar Province, China clearly wants more, American officials said.
Another complication is that because Afghanistan has never had much heavy industry before, it has little or no history of environmental protection either. “The big question is, can this be developed in a responsible way, in a way that is environmentally and socially responsible?” Mr. Brinkley said. “No one knows how this will work.”
With virtually no mining industry or infrastructure in place today, it will take decades for Afghanistan to exploit its mineral wealth fully. “This is a country that has no mining culture,” said Jack Medlin, a geologist in the United States Geological Survey’s international affairs program. “They’ve had some small artisanal mines, but now there could be some very, very large mines that will require more than just a gold pan.”
The mineral deposits are scattered throughout the country, including in the southern and eastern regions along the border with Pakistan that have had some of the most intense combat in the American-led war against the Taliban insurgency.
The Pentagon task force has already started trying to help the Afghans set up a system to deal with mineral development. International accounting firms that have expertise in mining contracts have been hired to consult with the Afghan Ministry of Mines, and technical data is being prepared to turn over to multinational mining companies and other potential foreign investors. The Pentagon is helping Afghan officials arrange to start seeking bids on mineral rights by next fall, officials said.
At War
“The Ministry of Mines is not ready to handle this,” Mr. Brinkley said. “We are trying to help them get ready.”
Like much of the recent history of the country, the story of the discovery of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth is one of missed opportunities and the distractions of war.
In 2004, American geologists, sent to Afghanistan as part of a broader reconstruction effort, stumbled across an intriguing series of old charts and data at the library of the Afghan Geological Survey in Kabul that hinted at major mineral deposits in the country. They soon learned that the data had been collected by Soviet mining experts during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, but cast aside when the Soviets withdrew in 1989.
During the chaos of the 1990s, when Afghanistan was mired in civil war and later ruled by the Taliban, a small group of Afghan geologists protected the charts by taking them home, and returned them to the Geological Survey’s library only after the American invasion and the ouster of the Taliban in 2001.
“There were maps, but the development did not take place, because you had 30 to 35 years of war,” said Ahmad Hujabre, an Afghan engineer who worked for the Ministry of Mines in the 1970s.
Armed with the old Russian charts, the United States Geological Survey began a series of aerial surveys of Afghanistan’s mineral resources in 2006, using advanced gravity and magnetic measuring equipment attached to an old Navy Orion P-3 aircraft that flew over about 70 percent of the country.
The data from those flights was so promising that in 2007, the geologists returned for an even more sophisticated study, using an old British bomber equipped with instruments that offered a three-dimensional profile of mineral deposits below the earth’s surface. It was the most comprehensive geologic survey of Afghanistan ever conducted.
The handful of American geologists who pored over the new data said the results were astonishing.
But the results gathered dust for two more years, ignored by officials in both the American and Afghan governments. In 2009, a Pentagon task force that had created business development programs in Iraq was transferred to Afghanistan, and came upon the geological data. Until then, no one besides the geologists had bothered to look at the information — and no one had sought to translate the technical data to measure the potential economic value of the mineral deposits.
Soon, the Pentagon business development task force brought in teams of American mining experts to validate the survey’s findings, and then briefed Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Mr. Karzai.
So far, the biggest mineral deposits discovered are of iron and copper, and the quantities are large enough to make Afghanistan a major world producer of both, United States officials said. Other finds include large deposits of niobium, a soft metal used in producing superconducting steel, rare earth elements and large gold deposits in Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan.
Just this month, American geologists working with the Pentagon team have been conducting ground surveys on dry salt lakes in western Afghanistan where they believe there are large deposits of lithium. Pentagon officials said that their initial analysis at one location in Ghazni Province showed the potential for lithium deposits as large of those of Bolivia, which now has the world’s largest known lithium reserves.
For the geologists who are now scouring some of the most remote stretches of Afghanistan to complete the technical studies necessary before the international bidding process is begun, there is a growing sense that they are in the midst of one of the great discoveries of their careers.
“On the ground, it’s very, very, promising,” Mr. Medlin said. “Actually, it’s pretty amazing.”
Monday, June 14, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Bionic-Eyed Man Wants To Stream Eye Video Online
Articles:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/biomedical/bionics/061110-eyeborg-bionic-eye
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/12/eye-spy-filmmak/
Main Blog: http://eyeborgblog.com
Rob Spence looks you straight in the eye when he talks. So it’s a little unnerving to imagine that soon one of his hazel-green eyes will have a tiny wireless video camera in it that records your every move.
The eye he’s considering replacing is not a working one — it’s a prosthetic eye he’s worn for several years. Spence, a 36-year-old Canadian filmmaker, is not content with having one blind eye. He wants a wireless video camera inside his prosthetic, giving him the ability to make movies wherever he is, all the time, just by looking around.
"If you lose your eye and have a hole in your head, then why not stick a camera in there?" he asks.
Spence, who calls himself the "eyeborg guy," will not be restoring his vision. The camera won’t connect to his brain. What it will do is allow him to be a bionic man where technology fuses with the human body to become inseparable. In effect, he will become a "little brother," someone who’s watching and recording every move of those in his field of vision.
If successful, Spence will become one of a growing number of lifecasters. From early webcam pioneer Jennifer Kaye Ringley, who created JenniCam, to Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell, to commercial lifecasting ventures Ustream.tv and Justin.tv, many people use video and internet technology to record and broadcast every moment of their waking lives. But Spence is taking lifecasting a step further, with a bionic eye camera that is actually embedded in his body.
"The eyes are like no other part of the body," says Spence. "It’s what you look into when you fall in love with somebody and [influences] whether you trust someone or not. Now with a video camera in there, it will change how people see and perceive me."
It’s an interesting and innovative idea, says Yonggang Huang, a professor in the departments of civil and mechanical engineering at Northwestern University. Huang, along with University of Illinois professor John Rogers has developed a web of micro-sensors to enable eye-shaped cameras. Huang is not involved in Spence’s project.
"It’s very clever," says Huang of Spence’s quest. "It is not a true eye but it provides the way for people to record images in life as they see [them] and store [them]."
Spence lost his right eye at 13 while playing with his grandfather’s gun on a visit to Ireland. "I wanted to shoot a pile of cowshit," he says. "I wasn’t holding the gun properly and it backfired, causing a lot of trauma to the eye."
This short video by Rob Spence shows the operation in which surgeons removed his sightless eye. Warning: Graphic imagery may be unsettling to many viewers.
Video by Rob Spence
After the accident, he returned to Belleville, a small town two hours east of Toronto, where he grew up. Spence became technically blind in the eye, and over the years, his vision deteriorated completely. Three years ago he had his eye removed and a prosthetic one inserted. Ever the filmmaker, he even made a movie out of his surgery. But it wasn’t an easy decision.
"When you completely lose an eye it is a difficult thing to let go of," he says. "The eye has an emotional attachment. It is a window to your soul."
Spence wore an eye patch for a while, which he says looked cool.
But once he started thinking about having a camera in his eye, Spence got in touch with Steve Mann, a professor at the University of
Toronto. Mann is one of the experts in the world of wearable computing and cyborgs — organisms that blend natural and artificial systems.
"There are a lot of challenges in this," says Mann, "from actually building a camera system that works, to sending and receiving images, to getting the correct shape of the camera."
Even in the age of miniaturization, getting a wireless video camera into a prosthetic eye isn’t easy. The shape of the prosthetic is the biggest limitation: In Spence’s case, it’s 9-mm thick, 30-mm long and
28-mm high.
While that might seem like plenty of room in an age when digital cameras are squeezed into unimaginably slim and compact phones, it actually isn’t. The average area available inside a prosthetic eye for an imaging sensor is only about 8 square mm, explains Phil Bowen, an ocularist who is working with Spence. Also, a digital camera has many more components than the visible lens and the sensor behind it, including the power supply and image-processing circuitry.
Getting a completely self-contained camera module to fit into the tiny hollow of a prosthetic eye is a significant engineering challenge.
That’s where Professors Huang and Rogers’ research could come in handy. Three months ago, the duo published a paper that showed how a new sensor built out of a flexible mesh of wire-connected pixels could replace the traditional flat imaging chip as the light sensor for a camera. The mesh is made from many of the same materials as a standard digital-camera sensor, but it has the ability to conform to convoluted, irregular surfaces — like the back of a synthetic eyeball.
"Our cameras might more naturally integrate with a prosthetic eye, due to their hemispherical shapes," says Rogers. "One might also argue that they can provide a more human-like perception of the world."
Then there’s the question of how the prosthetic eyeball (the outer shell for the camera) will be made. The eyeball chassis
has to close shut and be watertight.
Traditional prosthetic eyes are single pieces made with polymethyl-methacrylate (PMMA), a flexible polymer that is also used in dentures. To fit a camera in, Bowen redesigned the prosthetic eye into two pieces that could snap shut.
But with a camera inside there’s something new to worry about. The modified prosthetic eye will be heavier than traditional ones and that could affect the eye socket, says Bowen. "The weight might stretch out the lower lid," he says, potentially disfiguring the face.
Assuming the size, weight and water-tightness issues can be solved, Spence has a vague idea of how he thinks it can work. A camera module will have to be connected to a transmitter inside the prosthetic eye that can broadcast the captured video footage. To boost the signal, he says he can wear another transmitter on his belt. A receiver attached to a hard drive in a backpack could capture that information and then send it to another device that uploads everything to a web site in real time.
Eyeborg2_660x
If it sounds rather cumbersome and complicated, it is. Spence and his team are still working to find the right answers.
He hasn’t been able to get the bigger camera companies to work with him. "Part of problem is if you cold call somebody it sounds like there is a maniac on the other end of the phone," he says. "This whole idea confuses and overwhelms most people."
"Right now I am begging, borrowing and stealing camera modules from different cameras to make a stage one prototype," says Spence.
Spence is not the only one attempting to implant a video camera in his eye socket — artist Tanya Vlach is working on a similar project — but if he’s successful he will be more than just another cyborg. The documentary film he’s making about his efforts, plus the experience of living with a video camera in his eye, could help build greater awareness about the culture of surveillance in our society today, he says.
"No one is going to ban surveillance cameras," says Spence. "It’s more about being aware of it. It’s about giving a shit in the first place."
Having a bionic eye doesn’t mean Spence will be recording all the time, he says. Unlike lifecaster Justin Kan, Spence is not promising to broadcast all of his life’s moments. (Even Kan reneged on his promise within a few short months, as soon as a romantic opportunity presented itself.)
Spence is willing to turn off his camera in spaces such as gyms, theaters or private events. But he will be making many of those decisions on the spur, every day. "I wouldn’t behave that differently than someone with a cellphone today," he says.
Even though his project is still in its early stages, Spence says many people have already told him they wouldn’t be comfortable being filmed.
"People are more scared of a center-left documentary maker with an eye than the 400 ways they are filmed every day at the school, the subway, the mall," he says.
He hopes he will help get people thinking about privacy, how surveillance cameras and the footage they record are being used and accessed.
"Sometimes I run a little experiment," he says. "I tell people around me, ‘Did you know there are 11,000 new video cameras being installed in our country every day?’ Then I will exaggerate and say there are 50,000 new video cameras going in everyday," says Spence. "Most of the times I get the same answer: ‘That’s interesting. Now what’s for lunch?’ or ‘The weather is nice today.’
"I wonder what those people will say when they are staring back into the video camera in my eye?"
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/biomedical/bionics/061110-eyeborg-bionic-eye
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/12/eye-spy-filmmak/
Main Blog: http://eyeborgblog.com
Rob Spence looks you straight in the eye when he talks. So it’s a little unnerving to imagine that soon one of his hazel-green eyes will have a tiny wireless video camera in it that records your every move.
The eye he’s considering replacing is not a working one — it’s a prosthetic eye he’s worn for several years. Spence, a 36-year-old Canadian filmmaker, is not content with having one blind eye. He wants a wireless video camera inside his prosthetic, giving him the ability to make movies wherever he is, all the time, just by looking around.
"If you lose your eye and have a hole in your head, then why not stick a camera in there?" he asks.
Spence, who calls himself the "eyeborg guy," will not be restoring his vision. The camera won’t connect to his brain. What it will do is allow him to be a bionic man where technology fuses with the human body to become inseparable. In effect, he will become a "little brother," someone who’s watching and recording every move of those in his field of vision.
If successful, Spence will become one of a growing number of lifecasters. From early webcam pioneer Jennifer Kaye Ringley, who created JenniCam, to Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell, to commercial lifecasting ventures Ustream.tv and Justin.tv, many people use video and internet technology to record and broadcast every moment of their waking lives. But Spence is taking lifecasting a step further, with a bionic eye camera that is actually embedded in his body.
"The eyes are like no other part of the body," says Spence. "It’s what you look into when you fall in love with somebody and [influences] whether you trust someone or not. Now with a video camera in there, it will change how people see and perceive me."
It’s an interesting and innovative idea, says Yonggang Huang, a professor in the departments of civil and mechanical engineering at Northwestern University. Huang, along with University of Illinois professor John Rogers has developed a web of micro-sensors to enable eye-shaped cameras. Huang is not involved in Spence’s project.
"It’s very clever," says Huang of Spence’s quest. "It is not a true eye but it provides the way for people to record images in life as they see [them] and store [them]."
Spence lost his right eye at 13 while playing with his grandfather’s gun on a visit to Ireland. "I wanted to shoot a pile of cowshit," he says. "I wasn’t holding the gun properly and it backfired, causing a lot of trauma to the eye."
This short video by Rob Spence shows the operation in which surgeons removed his sightless eye. Warning: Graphic imagery may be unsettling to many viewers.
Video by Rob Spence
After the accident, he returned to Belleville, a small town two hours east of Toronto, where he grew up. Spence became technically blind in the eye, and over the years, his vision deteriorated completely. Three years ago he had his eye removed and a prosthetic one inserted. Ever the filmmaker, he even made a movie out of his surgery. But it wasn’t an easy decision.
"When you completely lose an eye it is a difficult thing to let go of," he says. "The eye has an emotional attachment. It is a window to your soul."
Spence wore an eye patch for a while, which he says looked cool.
But once he started thinking about having a camera in his eye, Spence got in touch with Steve Mann, a professor at the University of
Toronto. Mann is one of the experts in the world of wearable computing and cyborgs — organisms that blend natural and artificial systems.
"There are a lot of challenges in this," says Mann, "from actually building a camera system that works, to sending and receiving images, to getting the correct shape of the camera."
Even in the age of miniaturization, getting a wireless video camera into a prosthetic eye isn’t easy. The shape of the prosthetic is the biggest limitation: In Spence’s case, it’s 9-mm thick, 30-mm long and
28-mm high.
While that might seem like plenty of room in an age when digital cameras are squeezed into unimaginably slim and compact phones, it actually isn’t. The average area available inside a prosthetic eye for an imaging sensor is only about 8 square mm, explains Phil Bowen, an ocularist who is working with Spence. Also, a digital camera has many more components than the visible lens and the sensor behind it, including the power supply and image-processing circuitry.
Getting a completely self-contained camera module to fit into the tiny hollow of a prosthetic eye is a significant engineering challenge.
That’s where Professors Huang and Rogers’ research could come in handy. Three months ago, the duo published a paper that showed how a new sensor built out of a flexible mesh of wire-connected pixels could replace the traditional flat imaging chip as the light sensor for a camera. The mesh is made from many of the same materials as a standard digital-camera sensor, but it has the ability to conform to convoluted, irregular surfaces — like the back of a synthetic eyeball.
"Our cameras might more naturally integrate with a prosthetic eye, due to their hemispherical shapes," says Rogers. "One might also argue that they can provide a more human-like perception of the world."
Then there’s the question of how the prosthetic eyeball (the outer shell for the camera) will be made. The eyeball chassis
has to close shut and be watertight.
Traditional prosthetic eyes are single pieces made with polymethyl-methacrylate (PMMA), a flexible polymer that is also used in dentures. To fit a camera in, Bowen redesigned the prosthetic eye into two pieces that could snap shut.
But with a camera inside there’s something new to worry about. The modified prosthetic eye will be heavier than traditional ones and that could affect the eye socket, says Bowen. "The weight might stretch out the lower lid," he says, potentially disfiguring the face.
Assuming the size, weight and water-tightness issues can be solved, Spence has a vague idea of how he thinks it can work. A camera module will have to be connected to a transmitter inside the prosthetic eye that can broadcast the captured video footage. To boost the signal, he says he can wear another transmitter on his belt. A receiver attached to a hard drive in a backpack could capture that information and then send it to another device that uploads everything to a web site in real time.
Eyeborg2_660x
If it sounds rather cumbersome and complicated, it is. Spence and his team are still working to find the right answers.
He hasn’t been able to get the bigger camera companies to work with him. "Part of problem is if you cold call somebody it sounds like there is a maniac on the other end of the phone," he says. "This whole idea confuses and overwhelms most people."
"Right now I am begging, borrowing and stealing camera modules from different cameras to make a stage one prototype," says Spence.
Spence is not the only one attempting to implant a video camera in his eye socket — artist Tanya Vlach is working on a similar project — but if he’s successful he will be more than just another cyborg. The documentary film he’s making about his efforts, plus the experience of living with a video camera in his eye, could help build greater awareness about the culture of surveillance in our society today, he says.
"No one is going to ban surveillance cameras," says Spence. "It’s more about being aware of it. It’s about giving a shit in the first place."
Having a bionic eye doesn’t mean Spence will be recording all the time, he says. Unlike lifecaster Justin Kan, Spence is not promising to broadcast all of his life’s moments. (Even Kan reneged on his promise within a few short months, as soon as a romantic opportunity presented itself.)
Spence is willing to turn off his camera in spaces such as gyms, theaters or private events. But he will be making many of those decisions on the spur, every day. "I wouldn’t behave that differently than someone with a cellphone today," he says.
Even though his project is still in its early stages, Spence says many people have already told him they wouldn’t be comfortable being filmed.
"People are more scared of a center-left documentary maker with an eye than the 400 ways they are filmed every day at the school, the subway, the mall," he says.
He hopes he will help get people thinking about privacy, how surveillance cameras and the footage they record are being used and accessed.
"Sometimes I run a little experiment," he says. "I tell people around me, ‘Did you know there are 11,000 new video cameras being installed in our country every day?’ Then I will exaggerate and say there are 50,000 new video cameras going in everyday," says Spence. "Most of the times I get the same answer: ‘That’s interesting. Now what’s for lunch?’ or ‘The weather is nice today.’
"I wonder what those people will say when they are staring back into the video camera in my eye?"
Gesture-based interface for mobile devices
http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/baudisch/projects/imaginary_interfaces.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37580233/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/
‘Imaginary’ interface could replace real thing
Screen, even keyboard, for mobile devices might be supported by gestures
Hasso Plattner Institute
By Adam Hadhazy
updated 6:42 p.m. ET, Tues., June 8, 2010
Researchers are experimenting with a new interface system for mobile devices that could replace the screen and even the keyboard with gestures supported by our visual memory.
Called Imaginary Interfaces, the German project uses a small, chest-mounted computer and camera to detect hand movements. Unlike Tony Stark in "Iron Man," who manipulates holographic elements in his lab with his hands, users conjure up their own imaginary set of graphical interfaces. For example, people can manually draw shapes and select points in space that have programmed functions, such as a power switch or a "send" key, for example.
This interface could allow people to use gestures during phone calls, much as they do in face-to-face conversations, while eliminating traditional hardware elements.
Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here
"We definitely envision a system like this replacing all input for mobile devices," said Sean Gustafson, a research student at the Hasso Plattner Institute at Potsdam University in Germany and lead author of an upcoming study on the Imaginary Interfaces concept.
Button-pushers, screen watchers
The standard way one operates a cell phone or a computer, of course, involves using a touchpad, mouse or buttons to select options electronically displayed on a screen.
These devices cannot get any smaller really, Gustafson and his co-authors contend, because screens and buttons require a minimum size to remain viewable, touchable and hence usable.
Many attempts to advance beyond keyboards and mice have focused on gestures.
Yet these gesture-based interfaces have still relied on some sort of "real" visual reference, meaning one that other people can see and that does not exist solely in a user's mind: Think of "Minority Report"-style screens that people manipulate rather like conductors of an orchestra, or gaming on a Nintendo Wii.
In place of the screens found in these setups, some interface concepts use head-mounted projectors that display imagery on a wall or a hand, say, in order to provide a frame of reference. Sixth Sense, a project out of MIT, and Brainy Hand from the University of Tokyo are two such examples.
With Imaginary Interfaces, however, there is nothing to see; short-term visual memory instead serves as the reference, and like mimes, people can mentally record and "touch" these make-believe elements.
"People are able to interact spatially without seeing what it is that they create," said Patrick Baudisch, a professor of computer science at the Hasso Plattner Institute and Gustafson's teacher.
The un-imaginary device
In generating a virtual reality interface, the Imaginary Interfaces device combines a camera and a computer to see and then interpret gestures.
The device for now is about 2 inches by 2 inches square and attaches to the clothes on a user's chest. Its makers envision shrinking it down to the size of an unobtrusive button.
A ring of light emitting diodes (LEDs) around the camera beams out invisible infrared light. The camera sees this light reflected by the nearby gesturing hands but the distant background does not get illuminated.
To operate Imaginary Interfaces, people use two basic commands. Making an 'L' shape with one's non-dominant hand (typically the left) 'opens up' a two-dimensional plane where the finger tracing interaction will take place; the L acts as the lower left corner of the plane in this example.
Users can 'pinch' with the dominant hand to select a point in space on this plane that can serve a function. As an easy frame of reference, a grid can be visualized based on the lengths of the finger and thumb in the L gesture as a 'Y' and 'X' coordinate, respectively. Pinching at approximately 3, 2 — or three finger-lengths up and two thumb-lengths over — could press a virtual button.
Other more sophisticated methods of interfacing via one's imagination are in the works. "We are exploring how users can sketch interfaces, then use them," said Baudisch. "It has a cartoony quality to it."
Such a "draw your own interface" would have advantages, Gustafson said. "If the user places the user interface elements themselves then they will remember — visually and proprioceptually – the location for later use," he said. (Proprioception refers to the sense of our body parts and their relation to one another in space.) "If they ever forget the location, they can just redraw it."
Applications easy to imagine
This ability to create simple sketches on the fly opens up a range of new application scenarios, and could make phone conversations more like person-to-person interactions that often involve gestures.
"I would love to reclaim the hand gestures that are missing from normal telephone conversations," Gustafson told TechNewsDaily.
"We use our hands in conversation to, amongst other things, transmit spatial information that is hard to get across otherwise," Gustafson continued. "For example, driving directions and the like are much easier to get across with some simple hand movements. It would be wonderful to re-enable this communication channel for telephone conversations."
Imaginary Interfaces still needs work. The infrared detection of hand gestures by the camera does not function well outdoors in sunlight, for example.
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And Imaginary Interfaces would not be detailed or precise enough for engineering schematics or the like. "Architectural drawings require a large amount of precision that is probably not possible without a high-res input and output channel," said Gustafson. "I like to think this system is best for 'napkin drawings' — simple visual representations of ideas that aid conversation."
A study about Imaginary Interfaces that includes several user trials will be presented at the 23rd Symposium of User Interface Software and Technology held by the Association for Computing Machinery in New York this coming October.
© 2010 TechNewsDaily
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37580233/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/
‘Imaginary’ interface could replace real thing
Screen, even keyboard, for mobile devices might be supported by gestures
Hasso Plattner Institute
By Adam Hadhazy
updated 6:42 p.m. ET, Tues., June 8, 2010
Researchers are experimenting with a new interface system for mobile devices that could replace the screen and even the keyboard with gestures supported by our visual memory.
Called Imaginary Interfaces, the German project uses a small, chest-mounted computer and camera to detect hand movements. Unlike Tony Stark in "Iron Man," who manipulates holographic elements in his lab with his hands, users conjure up their own imaginary set of graphical interfaces. For example, people can manually draw shapes and select points in space that have programmed functions, such as a power switch or a "send" key, for example.
This interface could allow people to use gestures during phone calls, much as they do in face-to-face conversations, while eliminating traditional hardware elements.
Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here
"We definitely envision a system like this replacing all input for mobile devices," said Sean Gustafson, a research student at the Hasso Plattner Institute at Potsdam University in Germany and lead author of an upcoming study on the Imaginary Interfaces concept.
Button-pushers, screen watchers
The standard way one operates a cell phone or a computer, of course, involves using a touchpad, mouse or buttons to select options electronically displayed on a screen.
These devices cannot get any smaller really, Gustafson and his co-authors contend, because screens and buttons require a minimum size to remain viewable, touchable and hence usable.
Many attempts to advance beyond keyboards and mice have focused on gestures.
Yet these gesture-based interfaces have still relied on some sort of "real" visual reference, meaning one that other people can see and that does not exist solely in a user's mind: Think of "Minority Report"-style screens that people manipulate rather like conductors of an orchestra, or gaming on a Nintendo Wii.
In place of the screens found in these setups, some interface concepts use head-mounted projectors that display imagery on a wall or a hand, say, in order to provide a frame of reference. Sixth Sense, a project out of MIT, and Brainy Hand from the University of Tokyo are two such examples.
With Imaginary Interfaces, however, there is nothing to see; short-term visual memory instead serves as the reference, and like mimes, people can mentally record and "touch" these make-believe elements.
"People are able to interact spatially without seeing what it is that they create," said Patrick Baudisch, a professor of computer science at the Hasso Plattner Institute and Gustafson's teacher.
The un-imaginary device
In generating a virtual reality interface, the Imaginary Interfaces device combines a camera and a computer to see and then interpret gestures.
The device for now is about 2 inches by 2 inches square and attaches to the clothes on a user's chest. Its makers envision shrinking it down to the size of an unobtrusive button.
A ring of light emitting diodes (LEDs) around the camera beams out invisible infrared light. The camera sees this light reflected by the nearby gesturing hands but the distant background does not get illuminated.
To operate Imaginary Interfaces, people use two basic commands. Making an 'L' shape with one's non-dominant hand (typically the left) 'opens up' a two-dimensional plane where the finger tracing interaction will take place; the L acts as the lower left corner of the plane in this example.
Users can 'pinch' with the dominant hand to select a point in space on this plane that can serve a function. As an easy frame of reference, a grid can be visualized based on the lengths of the finger and thumb in the L gesture as a 'Y' and 'X' coordinate, respectively. Pinching at approximately 3, 2 — or three finger-lengths up and two thumb-lengths over — could press a virtual button.
Other more sophisticated methods of interfacing via one's imagination are in the works. "We are exploring how users can sketch interfaces, then use them," said Baudisch. "It has a cartoony quality to it."
Such a "draw your own interface" would have advantages, Gustafson said. "If the user places the user interface elements themselves then they will remember — visually and proprioceptually – the location for later use," he said. (Proprioception refers to the sense of our body parts and their relation to one another in space.) "If they ever forget the location, they can just redraw it."
Applications easy to imagine
This ability to create simple sketches on the fly opens up a range of new application scenarios, and could make phone conversations more like person-to-person interactions that often involve gestures.
"I would love to reclaim the hand gestures that are missing from normal telephone conversations," Gustafson told TechNewsDaily.
"We use our hands in conversation to, amongst other things, transmit spatial information that is hard to get across otherwise," Gustafson continued. "For example, driving directions and the like are much easier to get across with some simple hand movements. It would be wonderful to re-enable this communication channel for telephone conversations."
Imaginary Interfaces still needs work. The infrared detection of hand gestures by the camera does not function well outdoors in sunlight, for example.
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And Imaginary Interfaces would not be detailed or precise enough for engineering schematics or the like. "Architectural drawings require a large amount of precision that is probably not possible without a high-res input and output channel," said Gustafson. "I like to think this system is best for 'napkin drawings' — simple visual representations of ideas that aid conversation."
A study about Imaginary Interfaces that includes several user trials will be presented at the 23rd Symposium of User Interface Software and Technology held by the Association for Computing Machinery in New York this coming October.
© 2010 TechNewsDaily
Thursday, June 10, 2010
After Lawsuits and Therapy, Star Wars Kid is Back
http://www.motherboard.tv/2010/6/1/after-lawsuits-and-therapy-star-wars-kid-is-back
It may be the most legendary monument to the internet’s 15 megabytes of fame – or unintentional infamy: eight years ago, private footage of a heavy-set teenager, spinning nearly uncontrollably while wielding an imaginary-lightsaber, as if in an audition tape for Star Wars, was uploaded to the web and passed around. Within days it was well on its way to becoming the most popular viral video of all time. It’s since been viewed by over 1 billion people.
Not as many people know the rest of the story: Ghyslain Raza – or to the internet,Star Wars Kid – didn’t feel famous, or funny. He felt harassed, the victim of the most visible bullying in history. Ghyslain dropped out of his Quebec high school, was diagnosed with depression, and checked into a psychiatric ward for children.
Ghyslain and his parents would later sue the families of the three classmates who leaked the video in 2003, for around $250,000. According to the lawsuit, which resulted in a settlement, “Ghyslain had to endure, and still endures today, harassment and derision from his high-school mates and the public at large.”
But after eight years of laughs at his expense – and a few campaigns in his defense – Ghyslain is back. Now in his early 20s, he’s reemerged as the president of the Patrimoine Trois-Rivières, a conservation society that aims to preserve the cultural heritage of his hometown of Trois-Rivières.
Revenge of the Sith this isn’t, but he’s putting his litigious experience to some use, getting his law degree at McGill University in Montreal.
The vicissitudes of the internet are now well known, thanks in parts to tales like Ghyslain’s. But cyberbullying and trolling have only grown more intense since “Star Wars Kid,” due to the increasing tendency to share, the decline of privacy, and the morally-fluid culture of anonymity that has grown around message boards like 4chan.
And the impacts remain as serious as ever. As Alexey “Impossible Is Nothing” Vayner told us in our recent documentary about internet culture, “things got bad.” He received death threats and warnings that he would be deported from people he didn’t know, “and people who didn’t know me.” In the United States, cyberbullying has been tied to three suicides of children between the ages of 12 and 13.
For Ghyslain and Alexey, their characters will forever be tied up with the myths fashioned by a click-hungry internet. “i don’t think his life was ruined or he killed himself,” says a Youtube uploader of the “Star Wars Kid” video. “these are what people always tell me but where is the proof? don’t rely on wiki to get your answers. most people want to think the worst because that’s a common initial reaction. i don’t go on this account much but enjoy coming back to read all the mail people take the time to send me. as for offers on advertising sponsorship, i am still considering, i have a lot of loans to pay off.”
On the upside, just as Ghyslain is pursuing a career in law, Alexey has mined his experience to fashion himself into an online marketing expert. Impossible may or may not be nothing, but perhaps anything is possible.
It may be the most legendary monument to the internet’s 15 megabytes of fame – or unintentional infamy: eight years ago, private footage of a heavy-set teenager, spinning nearly uncontrollably while wielding an imaginary-lightsaber, as if in an audition tape for Star Wars, was uploaded to the web and passed around. Within days it was well on its way to becoming the most popular viral video of all time. It’s since been viewed by over 1 billion people.
Not as many people know the rest of the story: Ghyslain Raza – or to the internet,Star Wars Kid – didn’t feel famous, or funny. He felt harassed, the victim of the most visible bullying in history. Ghyslain dropped out of his Quebec high school, was diagnosed with depression, and checked into a psychiatric ward for children.
Ghyslain and his parents would later sue the families of the three classmates who leaked the video in 2003, for around $250,000. According to the lawsuit, which resulted in a settlement, “Ghyslain had to endure, and still endures today, harassment and derision from his high-school mates and the public at large.”
But after eight years of laughs at his expense – and a few campaigns in his defense – Ghyslain is back. Now in his early 20s, he’s reemerged as the president of the Patrimoine Trois-Rivières, a conservation society that aims to preserve the cultural heritage of his hometown of Trois-Rivières.
Revenge of the Sith this isn’t, but he’s putting his litigious experience to some use, getting his law degree at McGill University in Montreal.
The vicissitudes of the internet are now well known, thanks in parts to tales like Ghyslain’s. But cyberbullying and trolling have only grown more intense since “Star Wars Kid,” due to the increasing tendency to share, the decline of privacy, and the morally-fluid culture of anonymity that has grown around message boards like 4chan.
And the impacts remain as serious as ever. As Alexey “Impossible Is Nothing” Vayner told us in our recent documentary about internet culture, “things got bad.” He received death threats and warnings that he would be deported from people he didn’t know, “and people who didn’t know me.” In the United States, cyberbullying has been tied to three suicides of children between the ages of 12 and 13.
For Ghyslain and Alexey, their characters will forever be tied up with the myths fashioned by a click-hungry internet. “i don’t think his life was ruined or he killed himself,” says a Youtube uploader of the “Star Wars Kid” video. “these are what people always tell me but where is the proof? don’t rely on wiki to get your answers. most people want to think the worst because that’s a common initial reaction. i don’t go on this account much but enjoy coming back to read all the mail people take the time to send me. as for offers on advertising sponsorship, i am still considering, i have a lot of loans to pay off.”
On the upside, just as Ghyslain is pursuing a career in law, Alexey has mined his experience to fashion himself into an online marketing expert. Impossible may or may not be nothing, but perhaps anything is possible.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Chinese internet addicts stage mutiny at boot camp
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article7145877.ece
Jane Macartney, Beijing
Fourteen young detainees overcame their guard and fled a boot camp regime of physical training and psychological treatment designed to cure their addiction — to the internet.
The group, aged 15 to 22, staged their mass breakout by grabbing a duty supervisor when he was in bed and immobilising him in his quilt.
He shouted for help and they apologised before tying him up. They then made their way in groups of three to the home town of the leader of the group.
The addicts made their break from the Huai’an Internet Addiction Treatment Centre in eastern Jiangsu province last Wednesday, complaining that they could no longer endure its “monotonous work and intensive training”.
Related Links
* Brutal boot camp 'cure' for China net addicts
* Teenager beaten to death in web addiction clinic
* China’s parents try shock tactics to cure net ‘addicts’
It is the latest incident to highlight the sometimes brutal techniques employed at camps across China to wean young people off the internet. A 15-year-old boy was beaten to death last year days after he was admitted to a camp. Last month a court sentenced two instructors to up to ten years in jail for the incident.
The China Youth Association for Network Development estimates that about 24 million Chinese adolescents are addicted to the internet, many to gambling sites.
For the recent escapees freedom proved short lived. A taxi driver alerted police after the young men were unable to pay the fare. There was little sympathy from their exasperated parents either, who had paid 18,000 yuan (£1,830) for their children to receive six months’ treatment at the camp.
Most insisted that their children should go back to the camp at once and since the breakout all but one have been returned.
One mother wept at the police station when she described how her son once spent 28 consecutive hours playing online games. A camp official justified the methods used to cure the addiction, saying: “We have to use military style methods such as total immersion and physical training on these young people. We need to teach them some discipline and help them to establish a regular lifestyle.”
The camp requires its “inmates” to be up at 5am and in bed at 9.30pm. During the day they must undergo two hours of physical drills, as well as courses in calligraphy, traditional Chinese philosophy and receive counselling.
Yang Guihua, the mother of the youth who orchestrated the escape, said that her son must return and defended the treatment. She said: “I don’t think there is any problem with the training methods at the centre. They are for my child’s own good.”
• China underscored its commitment to keeping a tight grip on the internet yesterday, vowing in a new White Paper to block anything deemed subversive or a threat to national unity.
It said that it wanted to boost internet usage to 45 per cent of the population in the next five years but gave no indication that it would ease the Great Firewall, which blocks websites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
Aubrey de Grey Fights Aging With Regenerative Medicine (Video)
More on Aubrey de Grey: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_de_Grey
http://singularityhub.com/2010/05/22/aubrey-de-grey-fights-aging-with-regenerative-medicine-video/
May 22nd, 2010 by Aaron Saenz
de Grey asks, "Why do you want to die?"
Aubrey de Grey looks and speaks like a wizard, but don’t dismiss him. He stands out as one of the most impassioned and well-reasoned advocates for longer, healthier life. His non-profit, the SENS Foundation (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence), seeks to use regenerative medicine to combat the disability and illnesses associated with aging. In his talk last year at TEDMED, he outlined how a “maintenance approach” could drastically extend the length of healthy life by systematically combating the damage our bodies accumulate as they age. Watch the video below and you’ll start to believe that regenerative medicine is on the path to curing old age.
Regenerative medicine includes a wide range of scientific endeavors, from genetic therapies to immune system training. Stem cells get the most attention, and perhaps rightfully so. Growing a new organ in a lab, or even in the body, is pretty remarkable stuff. What we need to remember though is that scientific research is developing many different treatments for injury to our bodies. Aubrey de Grey proposes that this research (with a few additions) will be enough to keep us healthy and fit well beyond our current expectations. He outlines seven major types of damage that cause the problems associated with aging and the means to combat each (12:15).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgLRhxvRlKg&feature=player_embedded
Repairing damage, “maintenance”, could be enough to keep us going for a very long time, and in a very healthy state. In essence, de Grey is debunking the myth that getting old and frail is a necessity. Instead, he proposes that regenerative medicine, which is advancing quite rapidly, may provide longevity by the steady and cautious repair of our systems down to the cellular level. It’s an idea that requires us to rethink our attitudes about aging. The only real barrier between us and living longer could be our apathy in pursuing this kind of research.
[screen capture and video credit: TEDMED]
[source: SENS, TEDMED]
http://singularityhub.com/2010/05/22/aubrey-de-grey-fights-aging-with-regenerative-medicine-video/
May 22nd, 2010 by Aaron Saenz
de Grey asks, "Why do you want to die?"
Aubrey de Grey looks and speaks like a wizard, but don’t dismiss him. He stands out as one of the most impassioned and well-reasoned advocates for longer, healthier life. His non-profit, the SENS Foundation (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence), seeks to use regenerative medicine to combat the disability and illnesses associated with aging. In his talk last year at TEDMED, he outlined how a “maintenance approach” could drastically extend the length of healthy life by systematically combating the damage our bodies accumulate as they age. Watch the video below and you’ll start to believe that regenerative medicine is on the path to curing old age.
Regenerative medicine includes a wide range of scientific endeavors, from genetic therapies to immune system training. Stem cells get the most attention, and perhaps rightfully so. Growing a new organ in a lab, or even in the body, is pretty remarkable stuff. What we need to remember though is that scientific research is developing many different treatments for injury to our bodies. Aubrey de Grey proposes that this research (with a few additions) will be enough to keep us healthy and fit well beyond our current expectations. He outlines seven major types of damage that cause the problems associated with aging and the means to combat each (12:15).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgLRhxvRlKg&feature=player_embedded
Repairing damage, “maintenance”, could be enough to keep us going for a very long time, and in a very healthy state. In essence, de Grey is debunking the myth that getting old and frail is a necessity. Instead, he proposes that regenerative medicine, which is advancing quite rapidly, may provide longevity by the steady and cautious repair of our systems down to the cellular level. It’s an idea that requires us to rethink our attitudes about aging. The only real barrier between us and living longer could be our apathy in pursuing this kind of research.
[screen capture and video credit: TEDMED]
[source: SENS, TEDMED]
Germany’s Artificial Cornea Ready To Restore Sight To Thousands
http://singularityhub.com/2010/06/02/germanys-artificial-cornea-getting-ready-to-restore-sight-to-thousands/
June 2nd, 2010 by Aaron Saenz
An artificial cornea (prototype shown here) could restore sight to thousands starting this year.
An expansive EU project to produce an artificial cornea has found success thanks to the work of Joachim Storsberg of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP in Germany. Storsberg helped develop a new version of an opthalmological polymer which the eye will bond to and still allow to function properly. The new polymer could help restore sight to thousands waiting for corneal transplants around the world. The artificial cornea has passed clinical trials and is ready to see expanded use in patients this year. Very soon those with corneal blindness may find a ready cure in the form of the new implant.
Corneal blindness affects millions around the world. According to the WHO, about 5 million cases of blindness in the world (as of 2001) were a result of corneal damage or dystrophy. We’ve seen several high-tech approaches to fighting corneal blindness including the application of embryonic stem cells to generate new tissue. For most of those affected around the world, however, corneal transplants represent the surest and most accessible treatment for their condition. A readily accessible, easily made artificial cornea is a huge boon to corneal transplants.
More than one hundred thousand patients wait for corneal transplants each year (~40k in EU, another 40k in the US, and many more around the world). While such transplants are fairly routine and regularly successful operations, they require the donation of the tissue from another human being, almost always someone recently deceased. The artificial cornea not only eases the pressure on finding enough donors for recipient needs, it also provides the opportunity for hospitals to increase the speed and availability of such treatments. Ideally, no one will ever have to go without a new cornea ever again.
artificial-cornea
Joachim Storsberg poses with the new artificial cornea set to see continued use in 2010.
In order to work in the human body, an artificial cornea has to meet some rather stringent requirements. First, it has to bond to the human eye around its edge, but stay unclouded by cells in its center. To that end, Storsberg took a widely used opthalmological polymer (found often in intraocular lenses) and adapted it with other special polymers around the edges. Combined with the application of a growth factor protein, the modified edge promoted cell growth around the periphery of the implant and secured it in place using the body’s own cells. The center of the artificial cornea, however, does not promote cell growth and remains clear so that it can be seen through. The artificial cornea also has to move freely with the eyelid and balance moisture on its faces. The polymer Storsberg chose is hydrophobic, allowing tears to lubricate the surface and provide the correct moisture on both of its sides.
Storsberg’s work was part of a larger EU funded endeavor, the Artificial Cornea Project, which sought to create a non-human based replacement for damaged corneas. The Artificial Cornea Project took three years, and the work of many collaborators around the continent, to produce the new implant. Miro GMBH handled the actual production of the material. Animal trials in pigs and rabbits were successful and lead to the first human uses in 2009. Those early human cases showed enough success to get EU approval for the device and the artificial cornea is expected to see its first widespread use sometime in 2010. That’s very exciting news. This project has not only succeeded, but the fruits of its labor are about to be (readily?) available to patients throughout the EU very soon.
A non-degrading piece of plastic permanently grown into your eye does not sound like the most elegant solution to the problem of corneal blindness, especially when regeneration of tissue through stem cells is on the horizon. But the artificial cornea is a solution which is (almost) available NOW. That’s immensely important. As with so many other current endeavors in medicine, curing blindness is likely to see a staged series of solutions using various emergent technologies. Artificial materials and implants in the near term, autologous stem cells in the far term, and DNA based solutions in the very far term. We need all of these solutions to help transition into a time when blindness is no more of medical hurdle than a broken bone. I wish nothing but the best of luck to Storsberg and the rest of the large team from the Artificiail Cornea Project. With their help I think we are continuing our journey towards an age when medicine can regenerate or replace absolutely any part of your body. Check off “building new eyes” on the list of requirements for immortality.
[image credits: Artificial Cornea Project, Fraunhofter/Dirk Mahler]
[source: Fraunhofer Press Release, Artificial Cornea Project, National Institute of Health]
June 2nd, 2010 by Aaron Saenz
An artificial cornea (prototype shown here) could restore sight to thousands starting this year.
An expansive EU project to produce an artificial cornea has found success thanks to the work of Joachim Storsberg of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP in Germany. Storsberg helped develop a new version of an opthalmological polymer which the eye will bond to and still allow to function properly. The new polymer could help restore sight to thousands waiting for corneal transplants around the world. The artificial cornea has passed clinical trials and is ready to see expanded use in patients this year. Very soon those with corneal blindness may find a ready cure in the form of the new implant.
Corneal blindness affects millions around the world. According to the WHO, about 5 million cases of blindness in the world (as of 2001) were a result of corneal damage or dystrophy. We’ve seen several high-tech approaches to fighting corneal blindness including the application of embryonic stem cells to generate new tissue. For most of those affected around the world, however, corneal transplants represent the surest and most accessible treatment for their condition. A readily accessible, easily made artificial cornea is a huge boon to corneal transplants.
More than one hundred thousand patients wait for corneal transplants each year (~40k in EU, another 40k in the US, and many more around the world). While such transplants are fairly routine and regularly successful operations, they require the donation of the tissue from another human being, almost always someone recently deceased. The artificial cornea not only eases the pressure on finding enough donors for recipient needs, it also provides the opportunity for hospitals to increase the speed and availability of such treatments. Ideally, no one will ever have to go without a new cornea ever again.
artificial-cornea
Joachim Storsberg poses with the new artificial cornea set to see continued use in 2010.
In order to work in the human body, an artificial cornea has to meet some rather stringent requirements. First, it has to bond to the human eye around its edge, but stay unclouded by cells in its center. To that end, Storsberg took a widely used opthalmological polymer (found often in intraocular lenses) and adapted it with other special polymers around the edges. Combined with the application of a growth factor protein, the modified edge promoted cell growth around the periphery of the implant and secured it in place using the body’s own cells. The center of the artificial cornea, however, does not promote cell growth and remains clear so that it can be seen through. The artificial cornea also has to move freely with the eyelid and balance moisture on its faces. The polymer Storsberg chose is hydrophobic, allowing tears to lubricate the surface and provide the correct moisture on both of its sides.
Storsberg’s work was part of a larger EU funded endeavor, the Artificial Cornea Project, which sought to create a non-human based replacement for damaged corneas. The Artificial Cornea Project took three years, and the work of many collaborators around the continent, to produce the new implant. Miro GMBH handled the actual production of the material. Animal trials in pigs and rabbits were successful and lead to the first human uses in 2009. Those early human cases showed enough success to get EU approval for the device and the artificial cornea is expected to see its first widespread use sometime in 2010. That’s very exciting news. This project has not only succeeded, but the fruits of its labor are about to be (readily?) available to patients throughout the EU very soon.
A non-degrading piece of plastic permanently grown into your eye does not sound like the most elegant solution to the problem of corneal blindness, especially when regeneration of tissue through stem cells is on the horizon. But the artificial cornea is a solution which is (almost) available NOW. That’s immensely important. As with so many other current endeavors in medicine, curing blindness is likely to see a staged series of solutions using various emergent technologies. Artificial materials and implants in the near term, autologous stem cells in the far term, and DNA based solutions in the very far term. We need all of these solutions to help transition into a time when blindness is no more of medical hurdle than a broken bone. I wish nothing but the best of luck to Storsberg and the rest of the large team from the Artificiail Cornea Project. With their help I think we are continuing our journey towards an age when medicine can regenerate or replace absolutely any part of your body. Check off “building new eyes” on the list of requirements for immortality.
[image credits: Artificial Cornea Project, Fraunhofter/Dirk Mahler]
[source: Fraunhofer Press Release, Artificial Cornea Project, National Institute of Health]
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