January 21, 2005. If the vision-restoring visor worn by the Star
Trek: The Next Generation character Geordi La Forge is an
indication of things to come, then researchers in Germany have
taken a big step toward making such a device a reality. IIP
Technologies, a start-up company based in Bonn, has announced
promising early results from tests of an artificial replacement
for the retina, the light-sensing membrane inside the eye. It's
a small electrode array that is surgically placed against the
front of the retina, says John Wyatt, a professor of electrical
engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who
worked as a consultant for IIP on the project. The implants are
"very flat and thin. They pass current through each electrode
and it stimulates some of the retinal nerves that lie beneath
it, producing the perception of a localized spot of light, at a
position such as it would land at the same place in your
retina." According to IIP's Web site, the implant is just part
of a vision system that also