hello friends, this mail is useful for someone. with best regards m.chandru ----- Original Message ----- From: "Parker at Vip conduit" <[email protected]> To: "Accessible Devices" <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 12:05 AM Subject: Accessible Devices Seeing With Your Tongue
> This technology has been in development for some time now and it appears it's > about to be released. When you've read this you'll know as much as we do > about it. > Seeing with your tongue. By RON SEELY, 608-252-6131, > [email protected] > Roger Behm lost his sight at 16, the victim of an inherited disease that > destroyed > his retinas. Both of his eyes were surgically removed. > Now 55, Behm has made himself at home in a sightless world. He started his > own business > in Janesville selling devices that help the blind cope with day-to-day tasks. > He > and his wife have raised five children and just adopted another child from > China > who is also blind. He fishes, canoes, camps and scuba dives. > But Behm can remember seeing. Which is why he couldn't believe it when, three > years > ago, he slipped a device over his head, turned it on, and was once again able > to > discern light and dark, shapes and shadows, letters and numbers, and even a > rolling > golf ball. > "I could look down and and see the ball, white on black, and I could see > myself swinging > my putter," Behm said. "And, of course, I missed. But I could reach down and > pick > up my ball, like any other sighted person." > The device is called BrainPort and, though it seems like a gadget from Star > Trek, > it may be available commercially by the end of the year. > It works by converting images from a video camera to electrical impulses that > are > transmitted via the tongue to the brain of the blind person and turned again > into > black-and-white images that the user sees. > It takes advantage of groundbreaking work by a UW-Madison scientist that > showed the > brain will reprogram itself to accept and use different sensory signals - in > this > case touch instead of sight - to replace signals that can no longer be > received due > to injury or disease. > The device, which consists of a miniature camera mounted on a pair of > sunglasses, > a tongue sensor and a small control unit, was developed by Wicab of > Middleton. It > builds on another of the company's devices that uses the same underlying > ideas to > help restore users' balance. > The company is applying to the federal Food and Drug Administration to get > approval > for a marketable version of the vision device that could be available by the > end > of the year, Wicab CEO Robert Beckman said. > Trying circumstances. > Few have tested BrainPort under more trying circumstances than Erik > Weihenmayer, > the only blind man to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. Weihenmayer, totally > blind > since the age of 16, has used the device to help him hike in the woods, even > ascend > climbing walls. But he has most appreciated it for letting him do such simple > but > rewarding tasks as playing tic-tac-toe with his daughter or reaching down to > pet > his dog. > "I have a climbing friend who didn't believe me when I told him about this," > Weihenmayer > said. "So he put a Pepsi can on my table in my kitchen while I was out of the > room. > Then he called me back in and told me to grab it. I reached out and grabbed > the Pepsi > can. He was blown away. He was speechless. He had tears in his eyes. > "I mean, it may not seem like a real big deal to people, but to be able to > see your > coffee cup ... ." > Neither Behm nor Weihenmayer are paid consultants to Wicab, although the > company > pays some of their expenses. > The late Paul Bach-y-Rita, a UW-Madison physician and specialist in > rehabilitation, > first came up with the ideas that inspired BrainPort in the 1960s. The > technology > was patented by UW-Madison in 1998, and commercial development has been under > way > for more than 10 years. > New ways to work. > Bach-y-Rita's earliest thinking about the brain's ability to adapt to new > ways of > receiving and processing information - its "plasticity," as it is known now - > was > likely sparked by the dramatic struggle of his father, Pedro, to recover from > a devastating > stroke in the mid-1960s, Beckman said. > Neurologists in those days believed brain damage could not be reversed. But > Bach-y-Rita's > brother, George, soon put their father to work doing chores such as sweeping > the > porch of the house. Forced to accomplish more and more difficult tasks, their > father > eventually recovered completely and even went back to his job teaching. > He died at the age of 73 of a heart attack while climbing in the mountains of > Columbia. > Remarkably, studies of Pedro's brain after his death showed massive damage to > his > brain from the stroke. Yet he recovered. Somehow, his brain had found new > ways to > work. > At the UW-Madison, Bach-y-Rita focused his studies on sensory substitution, > the idea > that the brain can learn how to use other senses to replace one that has been > lost > or damaged. He concentrated on the power of touch, studying what happens in > the brain > when visual cues come from the sensitive nerves of the skin, such as those on > the > fingertips. > Perfect organ. > Those studies buttressed others that showed the brain can indeed learn how to > use > nerve impulses, delivered through touch, to create images. Exactly what > happens remains > somewhat of a mystery. But more recently, MRI images taken of the brain while > it > is working do show the visual cortex of the brain lighting up when receiving > sensory > data retrieved through touch. > "The information does get to the area of the brain that is responsible for > vision," > said Kurt Kaczmarek, a UW-Madison engineer and scientist who was involved in > the > early work on BrainPort. > The tongue is the perfect organ for the task, Beckman said, because it is > moist and > an excellent transmitter of electrical signals, and it has more tactile nerve > endings > than any other part of the body except for the lips. > Though one can read the science over and over again, it still requires > somewhat of > a leap of faith to grasp the idea of "seeing" through the tongue. Simply, the > patterns > of light picked up by the camera are converted by a tiny computer into > electrical > pulses across 100 stainless steel electrodes. Users say it feels similar to > touching > a weak battery to your tongue, a bubbly or tingling sensation. > The pulses are spatially encoded, meaning the person receiving those signals > on the > tongue can perceive depth, perspective, size and shape. That information is > translated > by the brain into images - fuzzy images, because of the low resolution, but > images > nonetheless. Those who have used the device explain that they perceive the > objects > in front of them, separate from their own bodies. > A milestone of sorts. > Weihenmayer recalled how when he first tried BrainPort, the researchers sat > him down > at a table, fitted him with the device, and then rolled a ball toward him. > "It's a hard thing to wrap your brain around," said Weihenmayer. "But when > they rolled > a white tennis ball toward me, I could feel the ball rolling. First I could > feel > the ball starting at the back of my tongue and getting bigger and bigger, > coming > toward me. And then I reached out and grabbed it." > When he ascends a rock climbing wall with BrainPort, Weihenmayer said, he can > see > the handholds, their differences in shape and the contrast in light between > them > and the background. What he sees, he explained, is largely shapes and light > variations, > sort of an out-of-focus image. > Last month, Weihenmayer joined Beckman at the National Eye Institute's 40th > anniversary > celebration to demonstrate BrainPort and some of its powers. It seemed a > milestone > of sorts. > But the man whose genius led to the creation of such a useful invention was > not present. > Bach-y-Rita died of cancer in November of 2006. > "He would have loved to have been there," said Beckman. > Source URL: > http://www.madison.com/wsj/topstories/451 > > www.vipconduit.com > and > www.accessible-devices.com > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > <http://mail.accessible-devices.com/pipermail/a-d_accessible-devices.com/attachments/20090527/2f5b838b/attachment.html> > This is an Announce only list. Subscribers are not able to post to this list. > To unsubscribe from the Accessible Devices list copy the line below. 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