There is something quite inappropriate about testing the patient first in the presence of the invited journalist, then "publishing" a single patient case study in Wired magazine. Plus the writer overemphasizes some imaginary "race" with another vision prosthetics researcher. Although some of the details they give in the comparison of the two types of methods are rather informative.
Yet then scheme seems to have worked, because people sound very enthousiastic about what they read there.

Actually what was really interesting is how much this blind Canadian person accomplished in his life without being able to use vision!

The WIRED article seemed big on drama and impressions and short on facts.

Are we talking grayscale images? Clumps of spots?

How often do these violent siezures happen?

*wildly off topic*
Paul Leonard, please email me (squant at bitstream net).
I am an old friend of yours from the greater chicagoland area.
*sorry. please return to your conversation, such as it is*

As this Wired magazine article, and in general, related Science and Technology news are often discussed simultaneously on Wired, Slashdot, BoingBoing and many Weblogs, we decided to post this on Slashdot, and MetaFilter, and would also invite contributions from readers here - although you may have seen it already. We would really like to organize a highly educated, open minded community on internet and bring them closer to scientists who are doing the original research. Some of the questions raised may also tie in nicely with Megnut's ideas related to money and blogging - see the discussion about that on Blogroots

It seems that this topics is very interesting for Slashdot readers, as related articles are often discussed here.

The answers to some of the questions that were raised here can be found on our pages, where we collected links to similar science and technology articles.
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Please visit Neuroprosthesis News
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Also, we would like to offer a $100 prize for the most thoughtful two-page article, commentary/criticism of either this Wired article alone, or a broader view of the current state of this science/technology field. Also please let us know in this thread whether you find this a fair compensation. We will then post the best on our site, with due references to the writer (unless s/he would like to remain anonymous). You keep the copyright permissions. Please send submissions to info@neuroprosthesis.org within a 15 day time frame. The results will be evaluated after that, and announced on September 15 on our site (unless we have 100,000 submissions and will have to beg for patience and time).
Thanks.

A couple of weeks ago I would have though this mildly interesting. I've since found out an acquaintance is going blind and the interest factor has gone right up.

ohmygod jim i love that movie. killer soundtrack too.

nobody i've ever spoken to has ever heard of it though.

Paul, if they ever get that good I may turn in my meat eyes for better vision through electronics. Nothing could be worse than my current vision except, maybe, blindness.

Having been living for most of my 31 years without a left eye (childhood accident), I have been following this work pretty closely, however I was shocked to see that things are as far as this. I'm astounded, but pleased. Now all I have to do is wait for another 10 years (at the most) for them to come up with one that could fit completely inside the eye socket, with better than normal vision.

And it's only a couple of years past the 1999/2000 that's portrayed in Wim Wenders' film, "Until The End Of The World."

Ironically, I'm beginning to believe that we'll have full on, inexpensive artificial vision _BEFORE_ Wenders manages to get UTEOTW out on DVD!