Monocular San Francisco artist wants webcam installed in her prosthetic eye

Tanya Vlach, a San Francisco-based artist, lost her eye in a 2005 car accident, and now keeps a blog chronicling the "monocular life." She's got a real-enough looking prosthetic peeper, but Tanya's a self-described "sci-fi geek," and, with the approval of her doctor, she's put out a call for engineers to build her a camera... for her fake eye. Likening her possible future self (the one with the eye-cam installed) to a cyborg, Tanya reasons that her aesthetic-only eye could become a source of "augmented reality," and she's got a list of possible specs up on her blog for would-be engineers to begin with. Just some of the things mentioned for inclusion are: DVR capabilities, MPEG-4 compression, a microSD slot, A/V out, and Bluetooth. In other words, Tanya Vlach is insanely cool. Emphasis on the insanely part.

[Via Digg]

[Larry @ Nov 17th 2008 2:00PM]

We can see what she is seeing at her web site....now don't take this in the kinky direction.

[Nabil @ Nov 17th 2008 2:26PM]

Can we get one of the pro athletes to do the same thing. I'd rather watch practice, and locker room pep talks.

[R40Railfan @ Nov 17th 2008 2:47PM]

Pro athletes !?!?!?!

How about every police department in the U.S. ?

[ben_j @ Nov 17th 2008 2:57PM]

@ R40Railfan:

http://www.hulu.com/cops

[Flashpoint @ Nov 17th 2008 4:06PM]

What I think is so funny about Jeri Ryan is how alot of people don't realize she was in a sex scandal with her husband Jack Ryan who was beaten later on by Barack Obama for the Senate seat.

It was alleged she performed sex acts in the back of a kinky club.

I just wish it was me screaming "Assimilate this..."

[OneLove @ Nov 17th 2008 6:41PM]

Seven of Nine! I will comply!

[cibrlx01 @ Nov 18th 2008 12:31AM]

Coming to a porn site near you,
CyberHooker

[y3k.nik @ Nov 17th 2008 2:00PM]

Hmm, I suppose there is some hope for mankind. Think we should put her in a cryogenic sleep state too and wake her up in 500 years to help water plants with water.

Her eye can store videos for the idiocracy humans in the future to see and take as gods words.

[absinthe party @ Nov 17th 2008 2:04PM]

Is Idiocracy your gimmick now?

[Jake Tobak @ Nov 17th 2008 2:13PM]

It would appear so.
Wasn't a great movie, but it had its moments and did make a good point.

"I'm not guilty!"
"That's not what the other lawyer said."

[bob sakamano @ Nov 17th 2008 2:14PM]

i feel like his comments are on some kind of auto-comment program that fills in some of the story into his pre-typed idiocracy based template

[absinthe party @ Nov 17th 2008 2:22PM]

It's like those spammers that just say things like "Excellent post! Thanks for sharing this information! my comments at: www.imlame.com/douche."

[y3k.nik @ Nov 17th 2008 2:36PM]

I suppose 2 posts are enough.. any more and I will be in the leagues of iEye

[zfurie @ Nov 17th 2008 2:01PM]

Running a USB cable from the eyeball-cam will require additional surgery.

I wonder where the cable would go out from.

[EskimoPie @ Nov 17th 2008 2:53PM]

That implies a male USB connection. She would obviously be fitted for a female connection. I'm sure she has a few accessible ports already.

[qrius @ Nov 17th 2008 6:33PM]

she already said bluetooth as a requested feature.

[Erb @ Nov 17th 2008 2:02PM]

I wonder if she'll have to plug in her eye to charge the battery every night while sleeping!

[Jake Tobak @ Nov 17th 2008 2:06PM]

Would be kewl if she could pop it out at night and drop it in a bowl that charges it via induction.

[Jason @ Nov 17th 2008 3:05PM]

Seems feasible to get an induction medium that would double as a cleaning soultion, but in order to charge it would be pretty harsh on her tissues. You gotta go with a two-step combo that uses a separate rinsing/moisturizing solution.

[Jon Nelson @ Nov 18th 2008 1:22AM]

Will she be able to pull it out, roll it across the floor and spy on people in different rooms?

Well, I suppose not really, because it wouldn't be transmitting to her brain. So close!

[kieran @ Nov 18th 2008 2:42AM]

Power or charging via induction doesn't need to be hard on her tissues. There are several biomedical devices out there already that do both. Well, at least charging by induction is already done. Pretty sure there are some devices (or at least some in development) that are powered by induction.

[LMM @ Nov 17th 2008 2:05PM]

Essentially there are only 3 hurdles to overcome: powering the camera, storage, and connection to the storage. Now assuming they use something small like an 8GB MicroSD for storage, that should be plenty of space for a few hours and comes with the added feature of storage upgrades, so that's not too big of a problem. If she doesn't mind removing the eye whenever she's reading the storage, there's another step overcome. But powering it...that might prove a little difficult, especially for multiple hours at a time. I'm definitely calling this plausible. DO IT!

[JStro @ Nov 17th 2008 2:09PM]

Plausible? Ha - Only Adam or Jamie can determine that.

[pete @ Nov 17th 2008 2:27PM]

For the data connection, use the Eye-Fi SD card - built-in wifi downloads from the camera

[maxter @ Nov 17th 2008 2:25PM]

About the energy, they could use little photovoltaic cells on the iris (the only problem is that I don't know if that would be efficient), and there's also the possibility of converting mechanical energy into electricity by the use of dynamos. The transfer of files could be made by Bluetooth or maybe WiFi, though I don't know if there could be an antenna small enough to fit with all the other devices. There's also the problem of the equipment being too close to the brain (remember some cases in UK of people reporting headaches after being exposed for a long time to WiFi signals?). Storage could be external, considering there would be a wireless connection to such device (which could be a portable hard drive of about 1TB, maybe).

It's risky, expensive and it's going to be tough, but it sure would be a great example of connectivity of man and gadgets. ;)

[JStro @ Nov 17th 2008 2:32PM]

On another note, it would also be cool if she could wear some type of sunglasses looking apparatus that had would let her zoom in with the camera and display the picture on a screen in front of her good eye. Oakley should be all over this, maybe they can throw in an mp3 player as well.

Thanks for the high rankings.

[Tom @ Nov 17th 2008 2:44PM]

Dude, poor form. You don't thank someone for thinking you're cool or funny - you quietly accept the compliment and continue doing what made you momentarily socially acceptable. It's refined peer pressure. Thanking them simply lets them know that you actually aren't cool enough to be so ice cold in the midst of a compliment. We'll give you a break this time.

[Wwhat @ Nov 18th 2008 4:07AM]

On my wifi dongle it says "operate at least 30cm away from the body", my point being that having effective wifi in your eyesocket might not be healthy really, at least BT is designed for low power and might cause less such concerns.

[ProfessorKaos @ Nov 17th 2008 2:07PM]

I have an off topic question: Why does engadget gray out some comments? Anyone know? Sorry for posting it in random thread.

[Phoenix @ Nov 17th 2008 2:10PM]

It greys out low/lowest ranked and highlights highly/highest ranked...


Just look at the rankings to find out >.< It's not hard.

[Jinto @ Nov 17th 2008 2:13PM]

Greyed out: Low rankings. Bright blue: High rankings. The plus and negative above each post.

[bob sakamano @ Nov 17th 2008 2:19PM]

professor... it must be your eyes... you should consider removing them and installing webcams instead

[loocas @ Nov 17th 2008 2:45PM]

Now you know...

[loocas @ Nov 17th 2008 2:46PM]

Now you know...

[loocas @ Nov 17th 2008 2:47PM]

My bad for not refreshing the thread...

Now watch me greying out slowly, ProfessorKaos, and take notes.

[AlDeezy @ Nov 17th 2008 2:09PM]

Wow!

[loocas @ Nov 17th 2008 2:44PM]

Wow! To your avatar, man!

[liv @ Nov 17th 2008 2:53PM]

forget his avatar I'm fapping to that gorgeous model in the photo right now... those lips :X

[barry99705 @ Nov 18th 2008 6:47AM]

I second the wow to your avatar!

[R-Tug @ Nov 18th 2008 8:48AM]

Cutey Honey

[Jake Tobak @ Nov 17th 2008 2:10PM]

Don't let Sony make the battery, would be horrible if the battery exploded in her eye socket >_

[scott @ Nov 17th 2008 3:07PM]

that would be a spectacle.

[ridahgadgetguy @ Nov 17th 2008 2:11PM]

iEye?????????

[NHAnimator @ Nov 17th 2008 2:23PM]

Eye see what you did there.

[Oli D @ Nov 17th 2008 2:36PM]

oddly hes no-where to be seen....

[StalematE @ Nov 17th 2008 2:56PM]

sssshhhhh, you'll wake him. I was hoping to go douche free today.

[Samboini @ Nov 17th 2008 5:18PM]

A douche a day keeps the away.

[Dave @ Nov 17th 2008 2:13PM]

Don't do it...as you'll most likely be banned for life from movie theaters, concerts, public bathrooms, the locker rooms at my gym, and a whole host of other places. But seriously though, it gave me an idea. Does anyone know how I can reach John Bobbitt?

[Eric @ Nov 17th 2008 2:18PM]

Only if they know about the camera.

[maxter @ Nov 17th 2008 2:29PM]

@Eric

Hum, I think half world already knows she plans to have a camera inside her fake eye. It sucks to be famous, huh?