It is now 40 years since the first episode of The Six Million Dollar Man, in which Steve Austin was given a bio-nic eye, was aired. The technology was pure fiction but four decades on, just how far have we come? One device that is being dubbed a “bionic eye” has recently become available in the UK for some sufferers of retinitis pigmentosa , a rare, hereditary disease that causes a progressive degeneration of the light-sensitive cells of the retina.
Second Sight’s Argus II is an artificial retina, which works by converting video images captured by a miniature camera housed in the patient’s glasses into small electrical pulses that are transmitted wirelessly to an array of electrodes on the surface of the retina. These pulses