Researchers develop eye-implantable camera

Most of the bionic eye systems we've seen involve clunky glasses-cam headgear, but the implantable camera now being developed at UCLA does it straight Terminator-style and keeps your face unencumbered. The camera, which researcher Michelle Hauer and her team recently filed a patent for, is small enough to be implanted directly on the eye's lens, and feeds image data to a chip at the back of the eye, where it can either be fed into the optic nerve to aid the blind, or just into a portable hard drive to aid the creepy. Hauer says power will come from on an onboard battery, but we're more interested in the mention of "optical control signals" in the patent application -- and by "interested" we mean "terrified of a zombie android army."

Read - NewScientist blurb
Read - Patent application

[Carl M @ Jan 22nd 2008 1:46PM]

Will you be able to change the battery yourself with a phillips screwdriver?

[PDubNYC @ Jan 22nd 2008 1:53PM]

I see what you did there Carl. Very clever

[kjb434 @ Jan 22nd 2008 2:37PM]

You probably have to mail yourself to the manufacture to change the battery, hehe

[Baba Booey @ Jan 22nd 2008 1:55PM]

I guess they could also use this on a child molester or something

or a lot of guys would use these on girls.

[fischju @ Jan 22nd 2008 6:30PM]

Screw that, use it to record a good Cloverfield cam!

[Kizorblade @ Jan 22nd 2008 1:56PM]

One gigapixel eyesight here eye come!

[Genesic @ Jan 22nd 2008 2:03PM]

lol..yea Kizorblade,forget 20/20, one gig vision sounds much better too me too! Or something more like GOLDENEYE would be even cooler.

[Tonbo @ Jan 22nd 2008 3:06PM]

Heh, more like 60 pixels max. You still have to deal with the wetware in the back of the eye and the limitations of the data chip interfacing with the retinal ganglion cells. The second generation Argus Retinal Prosthesis only has 60 electrodes.

[Kizorblade @ Jan 22nd 2008 4:18PM]

Crap. So I can't see things in stupidly good detail from 1000s of meters away? That sucks

[Greg @ Jan 22nd 2008 2:01PM]

Sales pitch:
Replace that old analog eye with a new, 7 megapixel, 3x optical zoom eye!
Peep better than before, and record it easier!

Or just see stuff far away :D

[Asher69 @ Jan 23rd 2008 1:42PM]

I think William Gibson just wet himself... or was that me in his honor?

Who can tell?

[Ray @ Jan 22nd 2008 2:10PM]

Did this make anyone else think of the movie "Brother from Another Planet?"

[looseinthedeuce @ Jan 22nd 2008 2:58PM]

No.

[Blaktornado @ Jan 22nd 2008 2:14PM]

Being a young person who's eyes are gradually failing due to their over-use of a computer, I welcome this. Yay!

[Mark Sunday @ Jan 22nd 2008 2:19PM]

I'm visually impaired, and would love to have this avilable with x-ray, IR, and UV options! I can check out all the women who would never date a blind guy:)

[ZeroCorpse @ Jan 22nd 2008 2:19PM]

The porn we'll see produced with this thing. . .

gasp!

[V3LOCIP3D3 @ Jan 22nd 2008 2:22PM]

This will make the paparazzi's job so much easier.

[Fernando G. @ Jan 22nd 2008 4:47PM]

and law enforcement's aswell




/closes blinds

[rento @ Jan 22nd 2008 2:34PM]

Interesting last week or so a similar announcement was made by a Japanese University. Well I see that's an eye for an eye thing. Good.

[Jeremy K. @ Jan 22nd 2008 3:02PM]

lol... Is this anything like the 'Eye Fi'? http://www.kontraband.com/show/show.asp?ID=3236&rtn=search&Keywords=porn&nl=2

[IndiaTech @ Jan 22nd 2008 3:19PM]

Macworld 2009

Steve Jobs: "Ladies and Gentlemen. Today we have revolutionized seeing. Yes. Introducing the iSight. Boom... It comes in 3 models. The standard 4 GB model in black. and the 8 GB model in black, hazel and blue."

"One more thing. iSight also comes in Product (RED) model. For late night flights."

[gdaymate @ Jan 22nd 2008 3:21PM]

It happend for USC, not UCLA. It took me 3 seconds to find that out.

[fuzzy @ Jan 22nd 2008 3:32PM]

目玉親父!

[wrabbit @ Jan 22nd 2008 3:58PM]

I'm gonna just geek-out for a second here, feel free to skip this...

How lame is it to reference Terminator in this article when the first thing that sprang into my mind when I read the title, and indeed the first thing that should spring into the mind of anyone who even remotely qualifies themselves as a geek, which I assume all engadget writers do, is "Blade Runner"?

(do I know how to write a run-on sentence or what?!)

Mr. Patel you shame all geeks world wide. :)

[wrabbit @ Jan 22nd 2008 3:59PM]

I apologize if it should be Ms. Patel.

[fischju @ Jan 22nd 2008 7:34PM]

It made me think of the "sim stars" from William Gibson's short story "Burning Crome". I think that I win the geek award :(

[Asher69 @ Jan 23rd 2008 1:50PM]

@fischju - Exactly! It's scary how much of his stuff has ended up mainstream tech we use everyday. ...Though I do have to admit, if I'm ever forced to watch Johnny Mnemonic ever again, I'll have to shoot someone.

I'm just sayin' is all.

[nicleT @ Jan 22nd 2008 4:19PM]

OMG! It's the return of The Residents!!!

[nicleT @ Jan 22nd 2008 4:26PM]

OMG! It's the return of The Residents!!!

[mkh @ Jan 23rd 2008 9:44AM]

That was my thought, too! Uncle Willie's Revenge!

[Wolfticket @ Jan 24th 2008 5:40PM]

It's a baby resident.
A new hybrid maybe...

[Jeff @ Jan 22nd 2008 4:26PM]

All I see is the blue screen of death!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[nicleT @ Jan 22nd 2008 4:27PM]

OMFG! Double post!!!

[Joe @ Jan 22nd 2008 4:47PM]

Can't wait for the x-ray vision firmware update!

[WildTangent @ Jan 22nd 2008 5:59PM]

Not if they make you pay $20 for it.

[R1cebrner @ Jan 22nd 2008 4:50PM]

Where do you put the sd card?

Time for my newest invention wifi/gps/3g/hspda enabled ear rings, powered by body heat. With option of direct upload of images from your eye implant to the photo site of your choice

[David Olivo @ Jan 22nd 2008 5:51PM]

I hope they don't use those Sony Lithium Ion batteries. Some could get an explosive headache with one of those!

[Celanor @ Jan 22nd 2008 6:45PM]

What would be interesting is if they could power it off of body heat. Something that small wouldn't need to much power to operate, and implants would have copious exposure to body heat. Just a thought...

[booger62 @ Jan 22nd 2008 6:55PM]

but will it blend doom?

[Bernhard @ Jan 22nd 2008 8:44PM]

My eyesight is back!

[Peter R. @ Jan 22nd 2008 9:13PM]

Who's the lucky guinea pig thats gonna test this? "Fed into the optic nerve," heh, good luck with that.

[bobby @ Jan 23rd 2008 12:02AM]

Olhado -- is that you?

[Clinton @ Jan 23rd 2008 5:15AM]

hmm.. I wonder how compatable these are to a catscan machine?.. :)

[Chris @ Jan 23rd 2008 6:21PM]

I'm holding out until the X-Ray functionality is available.