With all the photo technology around us, it will only be a matter of time until some really smart doctors come up with a viable bionic eye capable of forever correcting eye sight problems and even blindness. In the mean time we have a prototype here coming from MIT which should improve the eye sight for those people suffering from retinitis pigmentosa or age-related macular degeneration.

The retinal implant conceived by MIT consists of a flexible substrate, power and data receiving coils, electrode array and stimulator chip. The user would get special glasses which would power the coils surrounding the eye and they will also use a camera that transmits images to the chip mounted on the outside surface of the eyeball. The chip’s job is to stimulate the retina and the optic nerve through an electrode array.

The Boston Retinal Implant Project has been an MIT project for 20 years and we’ll be waiting to see positive results in the near future.

via MIT