This is the sort of thing that might eventually be very interesting/useful since I reckon what most likely actually happens is that your brain sort of starts 'rendering' the sensations as actual vision etc.
See message below. Jacob Kruger Blind Biker Skype: BlindZA '...Fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...'----- Original Message ----- WMTV Madison, WI, USA
Tuesday, September 18, 2007 Local Company Developing Technology to Help the Blind See Through Touch By Dana Brueck Reporter: Dana Brueck Email Address: dbrueck@xxxxxxxxxA small Middleton company stands to make a big difference in the lives of the blind. It's developing a device to help people see through touch.
The company has a patent on the technology.A Janesville man who lost his sight decades ago was eager to put it to the test. He began last July and says the BrainPort could give him more control
and independence."There's the putter over there so I think you just need to have it a little bit away from the grass to see it," Aimee Arnoldussen tells Roger Behm.
Behm golfs on a regular basis. "I'm about 60 strokes per nine holes," he says. But what makes his game remarkable is that he's been blind for 35 years. "I haven't got a hole in one yet, but it's possible... "This is the first time he's golfing with the gift of sight -- through his tongue.
"If I could have this every day, I'd be a whiz," he says.Behm's using a vision substitution device known as a BrainPort. The prototype is the brainchild of a former UW professor who formed the Middleton company,
Wicab, Inc."What we have is a tongue display and it has 611 little electrodes that act as pixels for your tongue so you feel a tingling on your tongue very similar
to champagne bubbles," Arnoldussen says. Cameras, mounted on the forehead, feed information to the tongue display."They capture the image and translate the image from a visual image to a tactile image presented on the tongue," Arnoldussen says.
The brain then interprets the information in black and white."You would appear as a shimmering object on my tongue. You'd be all, as I call it, white little dots," Behm says.
Behm suited up to demonstrate how it works."What we give them is a handheld controller where they can zoom in and out, in much the same way you do with your video camera." Behm has some trouble pinpointing the putter but easily picks up the golf ball. He will have to wait for that hole in one but says he's seen enough to
believe it can happen."It won't replace the guide dog or the white cane, but it would be a great mobility tool to assist us so we can go through crowded areas or outside ... I could see the difference between sidewalk and street, grass, and maybe see buildings oh there's a building," Behm says.
The company uses the technology in another device for balance impairment. Scientists say the BrainPort is at least a couple of years from hitting the market.
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