Mmm, mind-bending USB lollipops, the “delicious new confectionery uses cutting edge Sensory Substitution Technology to transmit vivid emotive images into your mind’s eye.” Wait, what? Tripping via USB? Shockingly, it might actually be legit.
It may seem like a total sham (and the “email for availability” link on the “Order Online” page doesn’t help), but the concept behind Eye Candy is actually based on real scientific research. In the 1970s, Mexican Neuroscientist Paul Bach-y-Rita, developed the then-crazy idea that the brain could accept other non-visual stimuli, such as someone tracing a figure on your back, and actually produce a vision of the figure in your mind as if you had seen it.
Devices like Eye Candy work by producing a matrix of small electrical pulses on your tongue, which is loaded with nerves, in the shape of a certain object to fool the brain into seeing it. Whether a faux-image of a fish can help you RELAX, or a faux spider can help you OVERCOME your fears like Eye Candy asserts is a different matter entirely, but the tech is not a total hoax.
This Wired Science segment shows a very similar device used by a blind person to read numbers on playing cards as if he was looking right at them, and even follow a path drawn on the ground. Pretty amazing stuff. And it can be yours, with slick package design on top!
Beth
August 30, 2008 at 10:44 PM
Hi, I have a legally blind friend I would love to share this information with. Please can u tell me if there are any of these kind of trials happening in Australia? He lives in Perth. Thanks.
Report Permalinkenevo
September 15, 2008 at 11:52 PM
Beth – does your friend know how to read the English alphabet? If not, then I don’t think it could help
Report PermalinkJanet Morrison
March 26, 2009 at 6:03 PM
I would like to try one of these. I am interested in trying the Brainport balance device but need to have testing to see if my tongue is sensitive enough. Having trouble finding somewhere to do this testing. I figure if one of these lollipops works for me that would be a good test to try out.
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