[blindza] Re: article: Wicab's wearable vision device nears U.S. market, thanks to Google
- From: William Brandes <williambrandes@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: blindza@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2015 12:20:21 -0500
don't forget the donuts. much more practical ... william
On 2/10/15, Jacob Kruger <jacob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Most definitely - suppose google's pseudo-support means it gets a bit more
> publicity on both sides, but don't honestly think it will affect it's
> development at all.
>
> Same way they're now saying it seems like google glasses are pretty much
> being discontinued - nice idea, but, just never happened, and while we
> weren't really primary target market, if it had ever reached mainstream
> availability, it might have suited us at times as well, but anyway.
>
> Stay well
>
> Jacob Kruger
> Blind Biker
> Skype: BlindZA
> "Roger Wilco wants to welcome you...to the space janitor's closet..."
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "William Brandes" <williambrandes@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: <blindza@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2015 8:18 AM
> Subject: [blindza] Re: article: Wicab's wearable vision device nears U.S.
> market, thanks to Google
>
>
> um. my take. this is a "thanks to google" --- "we are such good
> corporate citizens" publicity for a couple million $. cheaper than a
> super bowl commercial by about half /smile. as for me, i'll stick with
> the donuts. take care. william
>
> On 2/9/15, Jacob Kruger <jacob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Yup.
>>
>> Plus, not sure if/when they'll ever actually get into full
>> production/availability - nice idea, but it will take a bit longer before
>>
>> it
>>
>> gets taken up by too many people.
>>
>> Granted, a while ago, I bought the KNFB reader, classic PDA version, but,
>> wanted it at the time, and money was something thought wouldn't really be
>>
>> an
>>
>> issue at that stage, but, compare what it cost then in 2006, as opposed
>> to
>> something like the currently available iPhone version's price -
>> technological evolution, so, give this a decade or so, and it might be
>> something worth considering, if it's then still anything like a bit of
>> sensory substitution revolution...<smile>
>>
>> For now, will stick to things that are effectively freely available along
>> with bits of technology already have my hands on - the vOICe, forms of
>> echo
>>
>> location, my kSonar, etc. etc.
>>
>> Stay well
>>
>> Jacob Kruger
>> Blind Biker
>> Skype: BlindZA
>> "Roger Wilco wants to welcome you...to the space janitor's closet..."
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "William Brandes" <williambrandes@xxxxxxxxx>
>> To: <blindza@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2015 1:08 AM
>> Subject: [blindza] Re: article: Wicab's wearable vision device nears U.S.
>> market, thanks to Google
>>
>>
>> um. pretty high $ for my blood. will buy alot of donuts /smile ...
>> william
>>
>> On 2/9/15, Jacob Kruger <jacob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> Wicab's wearable vision device nears U.S. market, thanks to Google.
>>>
>>> By Jeff Engel, February 9th, 2015.
>>>
>>> Paul Bach-y-Rita believed technology could help blind people to, in a
>>> way,
>>> “see”
>>> the world around them by substituting touch for sight. After 17 years
>>> and
>>> nearly
>>> $26 million in total funding, the late scientist’s company, Wicab, is
>>> closer
>>> than ever to turning his idea into reality.
>>>
>>> Wicab has gotten some international attention in the past decade for its
>>> “BrainPort” device that converts video signals to electronic pulses that
>>> are
>>> felt on the tongue. But what isn’t widely known is that the company had
>>> been
>>>
>>> on
>>> the brink of failure—and that it took refocusing on the vision problem,
>>> plus
>>> some help from the U.S. military and tech giant Google, to right the
>>> ship.
>>>
>>> The Middleton, WI, company is now seeking regulatory approval in the
>>> U.S.
>>> In
>>> pilot tests, Wicab’s device has helped blind people navigate sidewalks
>>> without a
>>> guide dog or cane, aided a blind rock climber to more confidently pursue
>>> his
>>> passion, and helped blind children in China learn to recognize Mandarin
>>> characters and play games of darts.
>>>
>>> The technology is based on decades of research by Bach-y-Rita, who
>>> pioneered
>>>
>>> the
>>> field of “neuroplasticity,” the idea that the brain can reorganize
>>> itself
>>> and
>>> that senses can substitute for one another—in this case, the tongue’s
>>> dense
>>> group of receptors delivering information to the brain that would
>>> normally
>>> arrive via the optic nerve. Bach-y-Rita and his team showed that the
>>> brain
>>> can
>>> be trained to interpret this sensory data and, although it wouldn’t
>>> perfectly
>>> replicate vision, it could help the blind to better perceive their
>>> surroundings.
>>>
>>> “Paul famously said we see with our brains and not with our eyes,” Wicab
>>> CEO
>>> Robert Beckman says. “The eyes are sensors. If the sensor is damaged or
>>> not
>>> working, you can provide an alternate sensor … to provide the
>>> information
>>>
>>> to
>>>
>>> the
>>> person’s brain.”
>>>
>>> The BrainPort device mounts a small video camera to sunglasses that are
>>> connected via an electrical cord to a square-shaped, lollipop-like
>>> mouthpiece
>>> with a grid of 400 electrodes. The video feed is translated into digital
>>> signals
>>> expressed by the electrodes as light electronic pulses on the tongue.
>>> The
>>> tongue
>>> is an ideal choice for the contact point partly because it’s chock full
>>> of
>>> nerve
>>> endings. White pixels from the camera are translated into strong pulses,
>>> gray
>>> pixels feel slightly weaker, and black pixels result in no stimulation;
>>> the
>>> device can also reverse that so that darker images trigger the
>>> stimulation
>>> and
>>> lighter ones do not. The sensation, which feels similar to “Pop Rocks”
>>> candy, is
>>> meant to evoke in the mind a picture “painted on the tongue with tiny
>>> bubbles,”
>>> the company says—a much more sophisticated version of the children’s
>>> game
>>> where
>>> one interprets words traced by fingers on their back.
>>>
>>> Bach-y-Rita, a former University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher, died
>>> in
>>> 2006
>>> from lung cancer. But his company continued his work, and is now closer
>>> to
>>> commercializing the BrainPort device in the U.S., after getting approval
>>> to
>>>
>>> sell
>>> the product in Europe and Canada in 2013. Wicab is getting ready to
>>> publish
>>> positive results from a small clinical trial testing the technology, and
>>> it
>>> awaits U.S. Food & Drug Administration clearance to sell the medical
>>> device
>>> here, Beckman says.
>>>
>>> Wicab’s story is an example of the twists and turns a medical startup
>>> can
>>> take
>>> as it tries to make the sometimes-perilous leap from the research lab to
>>> a
>>> successful business. A decade ago, the company had a different focus.
>>> Between
>>> 2005 and 2006, it had convinced investors to pump more than $10.5
>>> million
>>> into
>>> commercializing its experimental technology primarily for the purposes
>>> of
>>> helping people with balance problems. At the time, the company combined
>>> the
>>> electrode-equipped mouthpiece with an accelerometer, which can tell when
>>> something tilts. The device would emit soft pulses of electric current
>>> that
>>> formed a pattern on the person’s tongue. If the person stayed upright,
>>> the
>>> pattern would remain in the middle of the tongue, but it would shift if
>>> the
>>> person started to tip over. The technology was thought to help people
>>> with
>>> chronic balance issues, perhaps through damaged inner ears or a stroke,
>>> to
>>> train
>>> themselves to maintain balance, Beckman says.
>>>
>>> Wicab poured money into a clinical trial to test its theory. The device
>>> indeed
>>> showed it could help people improve their balance, but those in the
>>> control
>>> group who used a sham device also improved their balance via the series
>>> of
>>> exercises completed as part of the study, Beckman says.
>>>
>>> The clinical trial had failed, and Wicab was running low on capital and
>>> forced
>>> to lay off a chunk of its staff, which had been in the 20s. “To be quite
>>> honest,
>>> I thought we were dead in the water,” Beckman recalls.
>>>
>>> But Wicab stayed afloat thanks to two things. First, it shifted its
>>> focus
>>> toward
>>> applying the technology to help the blind, Beckman says.
>>>
>>> Second, it won funding in 2010 from two high-profile sources to pursue
>>> its
>>> new
>>> plan. One was the U.S. Department of Defense, which awarded Wicab a $3.2
>>> million
>>> grant to see if the technology could help soldiers blinded by improvised
>>> explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. The other source was Google,
>>> which
>>> gave Wicab $2.5 million to fund the 75-person study, but didn’t take an
>>> equity
>>> stake in the company, Beckman says.
>>>
>>> The Google funding was serendipitous for Wicab. A U.S. Air Force general
>>> and
>>>
>>> a
>>> Silicon Valley venture capitalist heard about the BrainPort device and
>>> arranged
>>> a demonstration at Google’s headquarters in California. The pair wanted
>>> to
>>> help
>>> Mike Malarsie, an Air Force senior airman who was recently blinded by an
>>> IED
>>>
>>> in
>>> Afghanistan.
>>>
>>> Malarsie tried out the BrainPort after a quick tutorial by
>>> neuroscientist
>>> Aimee
>>> Arnoldussen, who at the time was leading Wicab’s clinical research.
>>> Among
>>> the
>>> spectators were a few Google employees, including Eric Schmidt, Google’s
>>> executive chairman and former CEO, Arnoldussen says. Google later
>>> decided
>>> to
>>> back further BrainPort research partly because “they witnessed somebody
>>> benefiting from the technology and wanted to make a difference for
>>> people
>>> who
>>> are blind,” Beckman says.
>>>
>>> Malarsie says he was confused at first by the concept of the device.
>>> “You’re
>>> going to put this thing on your tongue and it’s kind of going to draw
>>> what
>>> you’re looking at. When they said it, it made absolutely no sense,” he
>>> says.
>>>
>>> But he quickly got the hang of the BrainPort, Arnoldussen says. In one
>>> of
>>> the
>>> tests, she held a ruler against a black sheet hung on the wall, and
>>> Malarsie
>>>
>>> had
>>> to figure out whether the ruler was pointing horizontally or vertically,
>>> based
>>> on the pattern of the electrical pulses on his tongue as he moved his
>>> head
>>> around. He felt “this weird tingly sensation,” but it was “not really
>>> uncomfortable,” Malarsie says. He could immediately tell which direction
>>> the
>>> ruler was being held. “I could—I use the word ‘see,’ it’s not sight—I
>>> could
>>>
>>> feel
>>> how she was moving this thing, can imagine what it would look like,” he
>>> says.
>>>
>>> Other exercises included discerning big letters put up on the wall and
>>> looking
>>> around the room to determine where the windows were, Malarsie says.
>>>
>>> “He just really started to explore the room on his own,” Arnoldussen
>>> says.
>>> “That
>>> demo was purely Mike’s doing. I facilitated the trial, but what was the
>>> most
>>> exciting, was just how intuitive he was.”
>>>
>>> For Malarsie, it was the closest thing to sight he’d experienced since
>>> an
>>> IED
>>> buried in a Kandahar road exploded in front of him several months
>>> earlier,
>>> instantly killing two soldiers and blowing him off a bridge into the
>>> river
>>> below. Shrapnel hit him in the face, destroying his left eye and tearing
>>> his
>>> right retina. “From the second it went off, it was pitch black,”
>>> Malarsie
>>> says.
>>>
>>> His memory of the immediate aftermath is “a bit murky.” But he knows
>>> that
>>>
>>> a
>>> fellow soldier and a medic pulled him out of the water, then the pair
>>> advanced
>>> into the nearby village, enemy gunfire raining down on them, to recover
>>> the
>>>
>>> body
>>> of the soldier who stepped on the IED, Malarsie says.
>>>
>>> In the hospital afterward, Malarsie’s father delivered the news: His two
>>> rescuers didn’t make it back alive. All told, four men died and six were
>>> wounded
>>> that day, he says.
>>>
>>> “It was right then that I knew I didn’t have any right to feel sorry for
>>> myself
>>> to let being blind hold me back,” Malarsie says. “I wouldn’t be alive if
>>> it
>>> wasn’t for what they did. I decided right then to live my life in a way
>>> that
>>> would make them happy, proud of me.”
>>>
>>> Malarsie, 27, who later rose to the rank of staff sergeant, retired from
>>> the
>>> military in 2013. These days, he travels the country giving speeches
>>> about
>>> his
>>> experiences, writes a blog reviewing technology for blind people, and
>>> consults
>>> for a guide dog company. He has a wife and three children and sounds
>>> upbeat
>>> about the future.
>>>
>>> The meeting at Google five years ago was one of the moments that made
>>> him
>>> excited about potential technological advances, as he listened to Google
>>> employees spit-balling ideas for improving the BrainPort device. “That
>>> was
>>> kind
>>> of the first time I thought, ‘You know what, with this kind of stuff
>>> happening
>>> right now, unless I die early, there’s no way I’m going to die without
>>> being
>>> able to see,’” Malarsie says. “At some point in my life, I’m going to
>>> look
>>> back
>>> and tell my grandkids, ‘Back when I was blind, I used to walk around
>>> like
>>> this.’
>>> Blindness will be a thing of the past.”
>>>
>>> That’s still far from reality, but new technologies that hold promise
>>> for
>>> the
>>> visually impaired are starting to move from research labs into the hands
>>> of
>>> consumers. California-based Second Sight Medical Products (NASDAQ: EYES)
>>> and
>>> French company Pixium Vision developed retinal implant systems for
>>> people
>>> blinded by retinitis pigmentosa. The technology takes images from a
>>> video
>>> camera
>>> attached to glasses and translates them into digital signals expressed
>>> as
>>> electrical pulses by electrodes in the eye implants. The optic nerve
>>> then
>>> delivers this information to the brain, which perceives patterns of
>>> light—again,
>>> not returning full sight, but still providing more stimuli to interpret
>>> surroundings than without the device.
>>>
>>> One of the challenges is these technologies have high price tags. Second
>>> Sight’s
>>> product has a base cost of more than $100,000, but the company has
>>> secured
>>> reimbursement from some insurers, including Medicare in certain
>>> situations.
>>>
>>> BrainPort’s device costs $10,000, which partly explains why sales have
>>> been
>>>
>>> hard
>>> to come by in Europe and Canada. The company intends to conduct
>>> additional
>>> demonstration studies aimed at securing reimbursement from insurers in
>>> Europe,
>>> Canada, and the U.S., if the FDA clears the device for sale, Beckman
>>> says.
>>>
>>> Wicab will try to raise at least $3 million more to fund the additional
>>> studies,
>>> Beckman says. The company will also try to break into the Chinese
>>> market,
>>> aided
>>> by Haiyin Capital, a Chinese venture capital firm that invested $3
>>> million
>>> in
>>> Wicab last year.
>>>
>>> Beckman doesn’t know when he’ll get an answer from the FDA—Wicab
>>> submitted
>>> its
>>> approval request in August 2013. The process has “taken a lot longer”
>>> than
>>> he
>>> imagined, which he partly blames on caution by the agency as it
>>> evaluates
>>> the
>>> new technology.
>>>
>>> Beckman says the study of 75 subjects found that the electrical
>>> stimulation
>>>
>>> on
>>> the tongue was safe. Eighteen people dropped out of the study for
>>> various
>>> reasons, but the majority of those who completed the one-year assessment
>>> successfully used BrainPort to identify objects, locate and identify
>>> signs
>>> while
>>> navigating a hallway, and read words on a computer screen. The company
>>> intends
>>> to market BrainPort as a device that, after some training, can assist
>>> blind
>>> people with “orientation, mobility, and object recognition,” but is not
>>> a
>>> replacement for other aids like the white cane and guide dogs, Beckman
>>> says.
>>>
>>> If the FDA gives BrainPort the green light, the company would still have
>>> its
>>> work cut out to convince insurers to cover the device, and to continue
>>> advancing
>>> the technology and simplifying the design to make it more practical. But
>>> FDA
>>> clearance would still mark a significant step in Wicab’s journey to
>>> market.
>>>
>>> Malarsie’s experience with BrainPort during a six-month trial in 2011
>>> gives
>>>
>>> a
>>> taste of how the device might help more users in the future. He trained
>>> to
>>> the
>>> point where he could use it to walk down the sidewalk without his guide
>>> dog
>>>
>>> or a
>>> cane. “It was a liberating experience to walk somewhere outside without
>>> my
>>> hands
>>> outstretched in front of me, without a cane. It’s something I haven’t
>>> done
>>> since
>>> losing my sight. It was pretty awesome.”
>>>
>>> In addition to navigation, BrainPort was useful for discerning where
>>> people
>>>
>>> were
>>> located in a room. There would be too much stimuli for it to be useful
>>> in
>>>
>>> a
>>> crowd of people, Malarsie says, but he could use it to chase his
>>> children
>>> around
>>> the house and “see” where they were going, for example. “It kind of
>>> helps
>>> with a
>>> sense of inclusion,” he says. “So, just to have a sense of where people
>>> are
>>> sitting, how many people are around—that’s extremely helpful.”
>>>
>>> Although Wicab has made the device less bulky over time, Malarsie says
>>> it
>>> could
>>> be improved if it used a smaller camera that wasn’t so noticeable, and
>>> also
>>>
>>> was
>>> higher resolution; if it didn’t have any wires; and if it didn’t require
>>> the
>>> user to hold the lollipop device in the mouth and take it out with their
>>> hand to
>>> talk. He didn’t mind that strangers stared at him while wearing the
>>> contraption
>>> because it was useful to him, but he knows some blind people wouldn’t
>>> want
>>> to
>>> wear the device in its current form. “They already stand out; they don’t
>>> want to
>>> stand out more,” he says.
>>>
>>> Beckman says Wicab is aware of these inconveniences and is working to
>>> tweak
>>>
>>> the
>>> design and continue improving the technology.
>>>
>>> Wicab intends to eliminate the handheld device that controls the
>>> intensity
>>> of
>>> the electronic pulses and the camera zoom, instead placing those
>>> controls
>>>
>>> on
>>>
>>> the
>>> glasses. That would free up one of the user’s hands, which would be
>>> useful
>>> because a cane or a guide dog leash might occupy the other hand, Beckman
>>> says.
>>>
>>> The company considered converting the lollipop device into a retainer
>>> that
>>> would
>>> sit on the roof of the mouth, and the person would lift the tongue and
>>> touch
>>>
>>> it
>>> to feel the electrical stimulation. But focus groups raised concerns
>>> about
>>> the
>>> possibility of misplacing the retainer, so the company intends to keep
>>> the
>>> lollipop device tethered to the glasses, Beckman says.
>>>
>>> Beckman acknowledges that the current version of BrainPort looks
>>> “somewhat
>>> strange,” and he recognizes that blind people “are still very much aware
>>> of
>>> aesthetics.” But people’s reactions can change after they get used to
>>> seeing
>>>
>>> new
>>> gadgets. “The first time I saw somebody with a Bluetooth in their ear, I
>>> thought
>>> that was really odd,” Beckman says. “I believe that wearable technology,
>>> including glasses, are going to continue to be developed. As that
>>> happens,
>>> our
>>> technology will fit right in.”
>>>
>>> A next frontier for Wicab is partnering with software developers to
>>> integrate
>>> mobile apps with BrainPort, which would open up new possibilities for
>>> more
>>> advanced and complementary features, Beckman says. “We need to couple
>>> the
>>> capability we have—which is to interpret simple information, or the big
>>> picture,
>>> I would call it—with the Internet, which has the ability already to
>>> decipher
>>>
>>> and
>>> interpret complex information.”
>>>
>>> One of the early ideas is that a blind person could tell the mobile app
>>> she
>>>
>>> is
>>> seeking, say, a bus stop. The app could look online to find the next
>>> bus’s
>>> estimated time of arrival, while also helping steer the user to the bus
>>> stop.
>>> The app could have access to the BrainPort’s video feed and could
>>> communicate to
>>> the user—perhaps audibly, or through a signal on the tongue, or through
>>> bone
>>> conduction, a la Google Glass–that the bus stop is within view.
>>>
>>> Beckman equates it to the technology that will enable driverless cars to
>>> stay
>>> within lanes and identify the signals of traffic lights.
>>>
>>> “A lot has developed in computer vision, face recognition, contextual
>>> understanding of surroundings, the idea of tapping into cloud resources,
>>> that
>>> didn’t exist” several years ago, says Arnoldussen, who left Wicab in
>>> 2012
>>> but
>>> still consults for the company. Once BrainPort can integrate those types
>>> of
>>> technologies, she adds, “I think the impact will be quite strong.”
>>>
>>> Simplifying the logistics of operating the device and combining it with
>>> mobile
>>> apps are the key to making BrainPort a more practical technology right
>>> “out
>>>
>>> of
>>> the box,” Beckman says. “I think the device, as it is, is useful and
>>> will
>>> meet
>>> with some success. But I think where we’re headed is in a direction that
>>> will
>>> greatly expand the number of people that want to purchase the
>>> technology.”
>>>
>>> Source URL:
>>> http://www.xconomy.com/wisconsin/2015/02/09/wicabs-wearable-vision-device-nears-u-s-market-thanks-to-google/?single_page=true
>>>
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