These patients got their vision back, thanks to new Stanford tech

"With new wireless chips implanted behind their eyes and high-tech glasses, around 30 people with advanced age-related macular degeneration - a common eye disease - have regained their ability to read again. The device is the first of its kind to bring back functional sight, albeit blurry and only black and white, to patients with this type of incurable vision loss."

"The advanced form of macular degeneration, called geographic atrophy, causes people to lose sight over time. It's most commonly found in people over 60 and can cause irreversible blindness, affecting over 5 million people worldwide - and an estimated 1 million in the U.S. The condition destroys photoreceptor cells in the retina, the neural tissue in the back of the eye responsible for transforming light into electrical signals for the brain. Many people keep their peripheral vision, though they often become legally blind."

"The new device has two parts that talk to each other: an implanted chip and special glasses. The glasses - a prototype which Palanker admits is a "little awkward-looking" - have an attached camera that captures images and then projects them, via infrared light, to the chip. Meanwhile, the 2-by-2-millimeter chip - implanted into the patients' damaged retinas - converts those images into electrical stimulation, res"

A wireless retinal system restored partial functional vision to about 30 people with advanced age-related macular degeneration, enabling them to read again. The system pairs a tiny implanted 2-by-2-millimeter retinal chip with high-tech glasses that capture images and transmit them via infrared light to the chip, which converts images into electrical stimulation. Patients perceive form vision in black and white with limited resolution and blur. Geographic atrophy destroys photoreceptors but often leaves peripheral vision intact, and affects millions worldwide, primarily people over 60. Prior retinal prosthetics typically produced only light perception, not form vision.

Read at SFGATE