<story><title>Laser-powered bionic eye gives vision to the blind</title><url>http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/132918-the-laser-powered-bionic-eye-that-gives-576-pixel-grayscale-vision-to-the-blind</url><text></text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>kellishaver</author><text>This is so very exciting. For the longest time, treatment of eye diseases has gone a little like this:&lt;p&gt;Refractive errors? Wear some glasses, contacts, or have LASIK&lt;p&gt;Corneal diseases? Tricker because you need a donor, but corneal transplant.&lt;p&gt;Glaucoma? There&apos;s a handful surgeries for that depending on type, and a plethora of drugs.&lt;p&gt;Cataract? I&apos;ll take an interocular lens, please.&lt;p&gt;Partially detached retina? There are moderately successful surgeries to reattach it, rates of success depending a lot on the health of the retina.&lt;p&gt;Retinal diseases? Sorry, you&apos;re screwed.&lt;p&gt;My left eye was removed when I was in my teens, and the retina of my right eye is damaged fairly extensively due to retinopathy (from being born 2mo premature). It&apos;s lead to various complications over the years, as well.&lt;p&gt;My biggest fear is going blind. I nearly am, and I think I still have a little PTSD from the last round of eye problems.&lt;p&gt;Now, 576 greyscale pixels isn&apos;t much, but it&apos;s only going to improve over time.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s really exciting to think that people in my situation, and possibly even myself someday, will not have to face the prospect of total blindness from retinal disease.</text></comment>
<story><title>Laser-powered bionic eye gives vision to the blind</title><url>http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/132918-the-laser-powered-bionic-eye-that-gives-576-pixel-grayscale-vision-to-the-blind</url><text></text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>marvin</author><text>Is there anyone on Hacker News who works with this kind of technology, and knows what is holding this technology back from (1) higher resolution and (2) color vision? Obviously that this gets approved is a great achievement, but there is _huge_ room for improvement.</text></comment>