DIGITAL HEALTH + NEUROTECH
Reflex Arc‘s augmented reality games work with Microsoft Kinect to help children learn sign language and assist the visually impaired with exercise. Boris gestures sign language, and The Nepalese Necklace helps those with no limited sight with mobility training. The games encourage exercise and are designed to help blind children learn about spatial awareness, balance, coordination, and orientation. […]
Aira.IO combines wearable tech with a remote agent service to guide the visually impaired. Users are connected with agents who interpret the data stream from smart glasses and assist with navigation. The device uses a routing algorithm based on user and agent preferences. The company completed a multi-phase beta trial with 100 blind and low-vision participants in […]
University of Nevada‘s Eelke Folmer has built a drone system that guides visually impaired runners around a track, allowing them to run without a sighted guide. A downward-facing camera follows the lines on the track. A second camera focuses on a marker on the runner’s shirt. The quadcopter flies at eye level, 10 feet ahead of […]
Be My Eyes allows the visually impaired to receive help from people who can see via a live audio-video connection. Sighted users can guide a person while looking through a phone’s rear camera. When a visually impaired person asks the app for assistance, the Be My Eyes helper network is alerted, and an available member helps. Examples […]
Professor Amnon Shashua is the founder of Mobileye, a revolutionary computer vision approach to driverless cars. He is also the developer of OrCam, artificial vision technology to assist the visually impaired. This week he announced Casie, a wearable personal assistant. The device is meant for the masses, but could also help the disabled. It looks like a USB stick, and can […]
VSP Global‘s Project Genesis integrates health tracking technology into optical frames. Steps, calories burned, activity time and distance traveled are calculated by sensors at the part of the frame that touches one’s temple. Building wearable technology into stylish glasses, worn every day to improve vision, increases the potential for mass adoption. The prototype is now […]
Monash University’s Bionic Eye will be trialed in humans next year. The study is being led by Professor Jeffrey V. Rosenfeld. Patients who have lost their sight will have tiny “ceramic tiles” implanted into their brain’s visual cortex. The device bypasses the normal visual pathway, unlike the other bionic eyes in development, which rely on […]
University of Chicago‘s Francisco Bezanilla has published a study detailing the use of targeted gold nanoparticles to allow light to activate neurons. He describes it as optogenetics with out genetic manipulation. Optogenetics has relied on genetic modification, limiting its use to few model organisms. Bezanilla previously demonstrated that normal, non-genetically modified neurons can be activated by heat […]
Game developer Ubisoft, with Amblyotech and McGill University, has released “Dig Rush,” a video game used to treat amblyopia. Amblyopia is caused when the eyes and the brain aren’t working together, because one eye is stronger or the eyes are misaligned. Patching, the traditional treatment for amblyopia, attempts to force the weaker eye to work harder […]
EPFL‘s Eric Tremblay and DARPA have developed contact lenses with integrated tiny telescopic lenses to boost vision. The lens is controlled by smart glasses that respond to the winking of an eye, and provides magnification of up to 2.8 times. This can be a visual aid for Age-related Macular Degeneration and other conditions, in addition to […]