The biggest problem would be the moisture required in the eye socket itself. You cant have functioning electronics coming into contact with your body fluids. At the minimum it needs a charging outlet.

jdbaile3

@habib15: Exactly what I was thinking. An Eye-Fi card will meet the storage and transmission needs. IIRC from a kid I went to summer camp with, he had to take his eye out to clean it. You can have a charger built into a cup which will clean the eye at night. Blink sensors should be easy, and you can add a small vibe motor/vibe speaker which either gives feedback from a vibe, or uses the ocular cavity to transmit sound through the head. An Ipod touch seems to meet most of the hardware needs, and is easily worn on the hip, and can be used to remotely trigger the cam/get status/preview.

Plus you add in a wicked cool red LED when you record. ;)

Git Em SteveDave loves this guy-->

@SGlick1980: Then there's the heat issue.

Kayonesoft

just stuff a cameraphone in there and call it done.

tehki

powered by bio-electricity...its doable

twitzgall

@RobLikesbrunch: I disagree I think it is doable, and of course she does not want this to interface with her brain multi-millions wouldn't even fund that try billions or maybe more

tehki

Getting all of that into the prosthetic eye is easy, the connectors running out of her nose will be a bit unsightly.

DeadWriter

She could save money and just duct tape a camcorder to her head.

slawre5

Look folks, innovation occurs from calls-to-action like this. I found it pretty clear that she only wants a recording device to start (with some basic i/o for later play-back). The technology to build an eyeball-sized recording device does, in fact, exist. Most of it straight off-the-shelf. It just needs an ambitious and electronically-able person to implement it. Frankly, I think everyone's sarcasm is unnecessary and mean-spirited.

Simon

The technology exists to do what she wants, and even getting it down to the right size could be handled. But it sounds like what she is really looking for is a way to connect the device to what's left of her optical nerve and input the "DVR recordings," etc. right into her brain.

Sorry Tanya, we're not there technologically yet.

EBone

Hay guys, I'm currently poor, but I have big plans on becoming a millionaire.
Help me reach this goal by sending me money, and I swear you will all make history!

Bokusatsu_Tenshi

I'm sorry but I personally find this to be ridiculous. She want's someone to build her some crazy eye that, like many people have said before, harnesses some impossible technology... all so she can have depth perception?

C'mon! She has one good eye! Try closing one of your eyes and walking around, its not hard. She seems to be overreacting. I'm not saying car accidents aren't bad, i agree they are horrible and I'm sorry she had to lose one of her eyes in one but please, this is unnecessary.

If anyone could possible even just sufficiently incorporate some sort of eye that works with the brain just with a simple video function, then thats fantastic and I think that it should be implemented in the blind before it is used with this lady. Thats just me. Feel free to add anything.

LiviaSnake

this could work. You just need to be aware of the fact that without some kind of wireless inductive charging, a human eyeball simply isn't big enough to contain the battery that can power h.264 capture/encoding and transmit it to an external storage device and last more than maybe 20 minutes.

3x zoom, autofocus and dilation and UV sight would probably have to wait til version 2.0 (most sensors can do IR these days)

If you could design a battery or sensor or encoder/transmitter that are efficient enough.... to last a whole day... I could see a day where your pillow contains the resonant inductive charger and this thing doesn't even have to be taken out at night

jtan

The new Macs don't even have a firewire port. ;)

ob1canob

HEY!
maybe this will fit in your eye socket:
[www.spygadgets.com]

looks kinda big though.

thedarkhorse

@habib15: How about a charging patch that the user would wear at night, instead of having to take it out at night?

Also, if there was wireless communication going on with a box, the box could have some sort of image processing to use the advanced "blink commands".

tdeffen

Like that bad-assed chick from Doomsday!!! [www.imdb.com]

putch

I think I saw this on Alias!

silomunke

This could be possible...

if the eye is only a wireless camera transmitting to a box worn on the body that housed the storage and connectors. The eye could be charged by taking it out every night and putting it on those wireless induction charging pads for PDAs and phones.

habib15

Step 2: [memory-alpha.org]

Shai

She wants to be able to stick firewire/usb and sd cards into her eye-ball? 1) How big is her eye-ball, and 2) that's a little weird... and disgusting.

Does she want the recordings fed into her brain?

Maybe she could hollow out her eye and store some small jacks in it for when she gets bored, or turn her eye into a smoke bomb... that's probably more realistic...

Rabid Penguin

@*:

That didn't work nearly as well as you think it did.

RobLikesbrunch

@LiquidGravity:

Exactly. "Hey guys, check it out, I have a USB port....IN MY EYE"

It's really ridiculous. Even if somehow she managed to regain sight in that eye (it is possible, but EXTREMELY expensive), that'd be a miracle in itself.

She wants dilating pupil, recording...and a fucking firewire port?

It's absolutely ridiculous.

RobLikesbrunch

This sounds like one of the articles about Dr. So-and-so who thinks up bullcrap for the government to fund research on.

Also, its all mostly impossible.

jdbaile3

It's not that the technology doesn't exist. It's access to the technology that's the problem.

The super small camera exists
I remember reading about plastics that expand and contract with electricity, so that will satisfy the pupil requirement
Liquid lenses would handle the 3x optical zoom.
I'm sure there are mini usb slots small enough, the une in my razr would do

I think it's limited by cost and access, not technology.

That, and that's just way too much in one little eye.

SGlick1980

So where are the mini SD card slot and all the connectors going to be mounted? Is she planning on shaving her head?

Jrsy is the dude, playing the dude, disguised as another dude

@kennyNegs:

I understand her incentives, and her motivation, but it's just...overly ambitious.

RobLikesbrunch

@Serolf Divad: Tub-girl already has the squirting eye option covered...

Jrsy is the dude, playing the dude, disguised as another dude

Would you like fries with that?

kennyNegs

Get your finances straight, and then call Oscar at OSI...

anti-hello-kitty

Most important feature: Ability to turn the pupil red

Chromeo

@fogmaster: And where the F would you put all that stuff?

LiquidGravity

How 'bout we compromise and instead give her a novelty eye that squirts a stream of water when she winks.

Serolf Divad

Excuse me ladies, I "accidentally" dropped my eye in the ladies bathroom. Did any of you see it?

xsecretfiles2

@bagellord: Family Guy FTW.

LiquidGravity

@RobLikesbrunch:

That's the spirit.

kennyNegs

dream on lady....

jcrockerman

We can rebuild her. We have the technology. I don't want to spend a whole of money.

bagellord

are you kidding? This project is most likely impossible with current technology, if it is... then it is going to be damned expensive to even make a mock up.

fogmaster

"Wireless Charger"

I hope she means something that she can carry with here..rather than "wireless" electricity.

Does she plan to have some sort of display for her other eye so she can use those features...or does she want it somehow wired in her brain so it acts as an artificial eye? That'd be a multi-million dollar project.

Way too ambitious, needs a huge budget- never going to happen.

RobLikesbrunch

@RobLikesbrunch: Wireless electricity exist for just as long as qired electricity, ever heird of Tesla experiment in Colorado?

Maniako

@kennyNegs: hahahahahah

mpar

@RobLikesbrunch: Um, discovery channel has a whole 2 hour program about the man who has a fake eye hooked up to his brain. He carries a laptop sized case that interprets the data and feeds it to his brain. It doesnt provide the quality picture that a real eye does, but he can see a decent amount. I am not saying I know how to do it or that this girl will recieve it, but saying things like this won't happen is already debunked and furthermore, they will become a part of our near future for the blind.

livinzlife

I don't understand why she wants all those physical ports; what do they do that bluetooth, IR and induction charging couldn't handle? you can put a small amount of storage in the device, and bluetooth the rest to your iPhone or whatever.

Though I think it WOULD be cool to be able to stick a cord into the pupil, and have it stick via magnets like Apple's laptop charging cords. "Excuese me for a moment." *CLICK* "OK, you were saying?"

Wireless Joe

The real issue is the space for all those external things. This could be doable with a cellphone camera, internal flash memory and a mini usb port, but it would only last a few minutes on a charge.

Why does she want a camera eye?

solOptimus

@Kayonesoft: Tell him about the Twinkie.

Git Em SteveDave loves this guy-->

she's not asking for it to supply real time visual data to her brain (and thus connect somehow to her optic nerve) i think. I think she's trying to get one that records. like a camera that sits in the eye socket.

jtan

@RobLikesbrunch: Reach the moon? Impossible. Build a magic device which can communicate miles away? Can't do it. Dock two spacecraft in space? You stand in the back yard, I'll stand in the front, you throw a tennis ball over my roof and I'll try to hit it with a rock as it comes sailing over. No one could ever do that. Make a toothbrush which can charge in a base without any external charging contacts, and thus wirelessly. Perhaps in a thousand years!

Wait, all those things were done? Shit.

Git Em SteveDave loves this guy-->

Depending on the room in the empty space, some of this can be embeded, such as processing and other things that don't need to be attached directly to the eye. I could imagine the eye coming out and having the storage card in it. The wireless features sound a little crazy so close to your brain all the time, but they could be embedded in the 'base station' in the eye socket. Charging should be from your body with a backup solution.

All in all a lot of the features are redundant and most would be happy just to see again, but I really like this idea and may even need it one day when my current eye gives out. I have definitely thought about this before but am much more realistic about it.

sototallycarl

@jdbaile3: Not is it uses an induction recharger, like what is built into a lot of the newer powered toothbrushes. I can put mine soaking wet into it's charging base and not worry about shorting it out.

Git Em SteveDave loves this guy-->

@LiviaSnake: True, walking around familiar environments isn't hard. But when you go into an area that you have never been in before, or never been in since you became partially blind, it does become harder. I once said the same thing you did in my Psych class. After the Prof related the case of a friend of hers, and we discussed it in class, I did realize how hard it is. The big difference is it's easy to say close one eye, or close both eyes. It ceases to be easy when you can't re-open it.

Git Em SteveDave loves this guy-->

Dude... if we could throw in some/any of those personal HUD we had for the contest, that would be AWESOME!!!

malaklaze

@Shai: I think Babylon 5 was closer when they gave G'Kar a prosthetic eye which could transmit wirelessly. I think in one scene, he even left it in a room and watched what went on inside when he left.

Git Em SteveDave loves this guy-->

@= ): well... i'm thinking of other already existing slots we can take advantage of. that could even add some fun to the whole thing.

malaklaze

@LiviaSnake: My fiancee lost her eye in a car accident when she was a little girl (old enough to remember what it was like to see with two eyes). She says (and studies back it up) that the brain has a sort of temporary memory of three-dimensional space, which eventually fades with non-use.

Basically, the "not hard" feeling of a loss of depth perception you get from closing one eye, or even wearing an eye patch for months after an injury, are NOTHING compared to how you process the world when one of your eyes is gone for a significant amount of time. While it's true that she's lucky to not be blind, and will still be able to function (my fiancee was given clearance to drive, for example), your "it's not that bad" attitude is misguided, to say the least.

PipeRifle

The eye might be the hard part, though they could charge it the way those electric toothbrushes recharge. Then have it go over a short range wireless link to some USB device in her bag to an OQO.

benjgvps

@squish123: He'd even make the eye functional for a one-handed person.

Rabid Penguin

Maybe if we all ask him really really nicely Benheck will do it.

squish123

If they can make a small as memory card with WiFi capabilities, then most of those connections could be dropped. For any communication between the eye go for WiFi. Same goes for the need for a memory slot, just have a WiFi transmit the video feed rather than save to a card. A lot of the stuff listed could be replaced by substitution making it even more viable. My two cents any way.

Forsakenchild

This would be some borg shit.

WaffleTeamStrike

very reasonable and possible answer. Would also save a lot of space in the eye ball without having to have a mini SD card. could use something better in the box

MatchzMalone

Still i love to record quick movies cause then you can replay back if you saw what you like to saw
cause eyes mind stores the information ATW but to recall what you see can be a problem especially when you're travelling with 50mph

TBM-Fan

where does she want the firewire/ usb ports? WTF is she going to put all that stuff? Its an Eyeball NOT A mac pro! You cant just stuff random ports onto it. I bet next she will want a nvidia 9800 gx2 with sli? And no funding.... good luck!

vinnyr

Version 1.0
I would just focus on a small, efficient, wireless camera something that is normally off, but can be turned on with blinks or something, have it transmit the video stream to a bluetooth enabled pda or cell phone for storage, and WAN transmission.
Also to all you tards that would rather crap on the idea then help, consider why you feel it necessary to not only NOT help but to hinder?

burninator

@Git Em SteveDave loves this guy-->: What about the twinkie?

HAHA Who you gonna call!!

Invisobel

@jtan: If you used a super capacitor you could potentially get it small enough to fit in the eye. Plus, then she could charge it extremely quickly every 30 min. or so, not the most elegant solution, but still useful. I don't know why she wants ports on it, wireless would do a good enough job transmitting information and what about infection/irritating the little ports in there.

VachelSagat

She's thinking about it wrong, but with slight modifications to her design, it is actually very doable and probably not that expensive. I even have a sponsor in mind.

She wants the "eye" to do too much. All the eye needs is

- power
- camera
- ability to transmit its feed

Given that, a cigarette-pack sized (or smaller) device could sit in her pocket, purse, or clip to her belt, and the "eye" could stream its feed to that device. That device could easily take care of all the other things on her list.

Now, who is already in the business of wirelessly transmitting camera stuff to a remote computer and has the right name to possibly be attracted to this as a sponsor? Eye-fi, the people who make wireless SD cards for digital cameras. Seems like a one-off project like this would be something that could be a huge marketing boon for them--they'd get tremendous press out of it that should outweigh their investment in it. Most of what is needed is off-the-shelf technology, i.e. relatively cheap. A custom fabrication of a camera, wireless transmitter, and battery compartment into a prosthetic eye is all that is missing.

jiznerdo

buuuuut she's not willing to pay the builder?????

SCAM.

vicsells

I think the technology already exists for a low frame wi-fi transmitting rechargable camera eye. Shouldn't cost more than a thousand bucks from scratch.
The camera doesn't even have to work all the time, an R/C switch could trigger the on/off function.

That way she could do that thing the girl from Doomsday did, like take out the eye and use it as a camera to peek around corners and stuff.

Add a hidden microphone to the mix (no, not the eye you idiot, somewhere else, hidden, like a coat button) and you have instant credible eye-witness for overcharging clerks, abusive people, etc.

JesusDeSaad

I think y'all overreacting and misunderstanding here. All she wants is a digital camera that fits in an artificial eye. That's all. She wants to be able to walk around and take pics with the eye'cam, rather than have to use her (external) digicam.

Totally doable, probably wouldn't even cost that much to design/build. Practical value? Nada, unless she's some secret agent who is going to infiltrate some stronghold and snap surreptitious shots of some documents or something.

Oh, and to the person above who thinks someone has an electronic eye that can transmit perceivable video to his brain? Dude, dont' believe everything you watch on the discovery channel, or the history channel, and i"m guessing you misperceived what they were saying in the first place.

It's definitely possible down the road to do such a thing, but not with the tech we currently have. Until we can input a signal into singular neurons, without activating 1000s of adjacent ones at the same time (which is what happens with DBS, which is a very crude tech actually, but highly effective in some cases such as PD and tremor and dystonias), without KILLING the neuron we're inputting to, without causing a MASSIVE rejection reaction to the foreign material we're shoving into the brain, then this remains in the realm of sci-fi.

Can we input a crude signal that can be seen as 5x5 pixel light/dark signal currently - I think so yes, but that isn't going to give you any data asides from very rough motion.

But it's exciting people are working on such projects, and I'm not downplaying the ongoing research, just the unrealistic expectations/assumptions many geeks have in regards to neuroscience and where it's currently at.

banmojo

@RobLikesbrunch: She doesn't want a brain interface or anything crazy...just for someone to cram a mini-sd card, a video out and a camera into an eyeball sized package with a battery.
Input through blinking will the toughest to work out I'd think, accidental clicks being a problem.
Other than that, call up Ben Heck...he can fit anything into something smaller/cooler.

ice_cold_irony

@Chromeo: I just hate it when I only get stoned in one eye.

catfewd

@ice_cold_irony: Perhaps she can take tips from Sarah Palin to control the device through winking.

grawss

@catfewd: I think he was going for the Terminator effect, not the Stoner effect.

Jackhole

Ok, some parts of this are more attainable than others. I could see the eye having a 2MP camera with a 3x optical zoom, bluetooth, and perhaps even a single mini-USB port on it, but anything past that is asking for too much. She's going to have to choose between either that mini-USB port or the micro-SD card slot, because there just won't be enough space on the eyeball to fit both along with the other computing hardware and battery. Wireless charging is most likely out of the question, as well, due to the extensive hardware that would be needed behind the scenes. Besides, none of this would really do her any good unless she could see out of it, which I'm not sure is possible right now.

Blah8

@thedarkhorse: Actually, that could be a good fit, since they have controls on it and A/V port that could be removed to save space. Plus the battery could be reduced to a 1 day size.

TheCapt

This is clearly all about making a whole new type of POV porn, no?

Jackhole

@habib15: Was gonna say the same thing. It's not that the technology is not available, it's more like everything she wants is not small enough to fit in an eye socket.

A wireless camera that transmits images to a remote computer is not impossible. Even a specialized one with the video recording and image capture function is not impossible. What is is impossible, according to her specs, is the packaging of *everything* in the eye socket. Broken down into two components, the eye camera and the processing system, is more feasible and practical.

I'm still boggled by her desire to stick cables into her eye....

shoyo

@ob1canob: hahaha

fogmaster

As someone who had retinal cancer (retinoblastoma) at 13 months old, I can tell you that such a technology does not exist and is not likely to for quite some time. As far as fully functioning eyes go, this is the closest thing we've got.

[www.ioi.com]

Coopius

@ice_cold_irony: Blink-control couldn't be any more difficult than all this new gesture-control software. I'd assume it would be even easier.

Poisonthescene

I smell a possible candidate for a Gizmodo mascot!!!

RiceBandit

@jdbaile3: also its mostly impossible? lol what the f**k are you talking about? its a webcam with some motion senseing software, a built i battery and an sd card. expensive to produce...maybe yeah. impossible? (snickers) far from. how large do you really thik such a devie would be anyway?

you my friend, are either way too pessimistic, and/or have no real sense of technology.

jrghoull

to everyone you know...after looking over her specs...even if you ust put such a device together, it still wouldnt be all that big. and if she removed thing like the wirewire port and proably a few other things, i think this project is drn rght do-able

none of this tech is partiularly fancy in this day and age. i'm gonna guess thatshe could more or less get what she wants for under 10 k. people...its a minituried remote control video camera...thats it. its not being hooked into her brain or anything of the sort.

i saw a short special about video cameras as part of a way to hype upsome video game that was coming out a few years ago. trust me...they can make them more thansmall enough to fit into that fake eye (with room to spare)

jrghoull

Step 3: Profit!

Pope John Peeps II

It's possible to get some of those things done. The camera with SD and a mini usb out is doable. The resolution won't be the greatest. There's all kind of products available to security contractors for that sort of thing mini camera's and mini DVR devices.

ultrasonoro

Hollywood could pay for it easily.

Just color the iris red, and have her ask the occasional random passerby if they've "...seen John Connor."

*snerk*

Ed_Becerra

Sure baby, what's your size?

okeribok

Yes, and when you build one, send me one too...

Pretolo

industrial espionage.

maybe the non-industrial kind too.

x23

The woman wants too many interfaces, bluetooth, firewire, sd card, usb, all of those things do the same thing. Just sd would be enough if you can take it out and program eye via that.

If you distilled it to non duplicating features, it would be easier. Like a 640x480 cam that just dumps output to sd card, with self adjusting apperture(possibly chemical rather than mechanical. like self tinting glasses)

Powering from body heat is probably not that practical, but in webcams the sensor chip and lens are tiny.

Fabrication would require some high end equipment, out of reach of any electronics enthusiast. But something like that is possible.

She can even have some of the uv spectrum since currently its mosty filtered out of devices. Separating it from the rest of the spectrum would be tricky.

Blink inteface... you would have to account for all the normal blinks, so all commands would have to start past 3 blinks. Timing blinks could be tricky. And it would be done with light? What if you are going past a structure with the sun behind it, a quick progression of shadows would be read as a command?

Interesting project for someone just to lay out as a circuit and then figure out how to jam it in an eye.

alumunum

This is a totally doable project, and a great idea. I have always waited for the day when we could install cameras right into our eyes, and though this isn't quite what I had in mind, it is definitely a step in that direction. I don't think she is looking to hook it into her brain just yet, what she seems to imply is that she is looking for a way to make her prosthesis useful and not just ornamental, as a way to see what her missing eye might have seen had it still been there by means of video or still camera. I don't think the technology would be that expensive, the only thing difficult would be making the prosthetic housing that would be medically safe, but I don't think that would be a difficult problem to solve either, she seems to have someone already on board for that anyhow. The motion sensors are simple, the cameras exist (you just need a CMOS chip behind the eye lens and a way to store the data.), wireless charging might be tricky, but the technology exists. Regardless, I think there are a lot of creative people out there with the know how to pull a project like this off, and it has never been done before. I wonder if a TV show like 'Prototype This' on the Discovery Channel would take on a challenge like this?

BoNardy

maybe Joe the plumber can work something out for her. anyways, I don't think it would be totally impossible...at least having some of the features...like a camera controlled by remote. I think the hardest part of this would be using it with out some type of live display. also camera controls as far as centering your picture. normally your eyes follow each other. I don't believe a fake eye follows your live eye. anyways, if there was money to be made in this or at least some type of market to create a sustaining business it would already be created or at least in the pipelines. I really think this lady is outta luck.

ShantalaAchaeus

would it be possible to tweak (or add something in) her remaining eye, or her brain, to give her depth perception?

and what would she REgain from having mpeg4 recording? maybe if she listed the things that she just absolutely has to have then we wouldn't have such a whoa there, easy now response.

I'm not saying it's totally unfair to ask for all those things, but let's maybe have someone build a stripped down but functional mecha-eye first before asking if she can have this and that.

I've never read or heard of people asking for prosthetic legs with jump jets.

iatw

So here's things I think would help this project out, and mind you, some of them can seem creepy. The first is how much space do we have to work with? The prosthesis seems to be small, but is it possible to use more space in the ocular cavity? Second, in regards to wireless power, or charging, it is possible with induction and relatively inexpensive, but at that same time it's generated with a electro-magnetic field, so data is going to be mussed up. Third, are you trying to have this device be all-inclusive, or is it possible to have something else doing the horsepower. Embedding a processor would be impossible or difficult given current gen technology, but including a battery, a pinhole camera, a bluetooth module would be able to transmit the data to a bluetooth device. Sensor size for the camera might be limited, but it's something.

ColemanJalookhi