Martin Cleaver, AP The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has
approved use of the "artificial retina" so that some people who
are blind will gain limited vision. It's the first treatment of
its kind to help those who are blind. The National Science
Foundation called the Argus II the "first bionic eye" approved
for patients in the United States, the technology developed with
support from government and other agencies, including NSF.
According to an article in the New York Times, it is expected to
allow those with a certain type of blindness, retinitis
pigmentosa, to "detect crosswalks on the street, the presence of
cars and sometimes even large numbers or letters." "This is just
the beginning," Grace Shen, director of the retinal diseases
program at the National Eye Institute, which helped support this
and other therapy projects, told the New York Times. "We have a
lot of exciting things sitting in the wings." An individual dons
a pair of eyeglasses that carries a small camera that's hooked
wirelessly to a micr