Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Microcap & Penny Stocks : Microvision (MVIS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: vpelt who wrote (3907)	12/24/1999 8:59:00 PM
From: CAP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7721

Interesting article in current edition of Discovery Magazine about Univ of Washington work that sounds like MVIS' stuff. Do we hold a patent on this application as well? If so, add this to the other developments and it will indeed be a happy new year. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night! Laser Sights Every engineer knows better than to stare into a laser, because the concentrated beam can quickly burn the retina. In his lab at the University of Washington in Seattle, Eric Seibel is turning the usual rules upside down, deliberately shining lasers into people's eyeballs in order to restore vision to those who have lost most of their sight. Cataracts and corneal problems blur or scatter incoming light, but often the rest of the eye remains healthy. So Seibel has designed a laser display that pierces through the front of the eye and sweeps an extremely low-power beam directly onto the retina at the back, much the same way an electron beam sweeps across the picture tube of a television set. The scanned, narrow beam can draw a sharp image on the retina even if the lens and cornea are cloudy or misshapen. Rods and cones in the retina pick up the image and send a signal back to the brain. In a pilot test of reading ability, Seibel's system gave some legally blind people much-improved, 20/60 vision. He notes, however, that the setup won't help those whose blindness is caused by retinal or nerve damage. Right now his display is a bulky prototype, but Seibel is working on a version that incorporates a small camera and can fit on a pair of glasses. Video from the camera would be instantly beamed into the eye by a tiny laser. The goal is a system that works unobtrusively, even stylishly. "We want to make something you wouldn't mind wearing," he says. By Jeff Winters RELATED WEB SITES: Eric Seibel's Human Interface Technology Laboratory "Evaluation of a Scanned Laser Display as an Alternative Low Vision Computer Interface" and "Design of a Prototype Low Vision Aid Using A Scanned Laser Display" were reported by Seibel and his colleagues at the Optical Society of America's Vision Science and Its Application conference, February 19-22, 1999, New Mexico. See www.osa.org for proceedings. discover.com