Checketh this out folks: The Eyes Have It

How much essence does this cost?

Heh.

Note, however, the limits. It can *just* do 20/80. For the record, 20/80 is one step above blindness, legally. And they say that it would be impossible to get to even 20/40.

Well...That would make SR cybereyes impossible.

Well we do have 45 years or so to get it right...

What I want is a smartlink.

Their relevant webpage (with a link to the paper they've published) is here:
http://www.stanford.edu/~palanker/lab/retinalpros.html

What I want is a VCR-3. And a transducer. And an image link. And a datajack. And… and… and…

~J

Actually that's a good ways short of legally blind (which I believe is 20/300). The problem they have with getting better resolution than that is currently unbeatable, and will require advances in biology of massive nano-tech advances (SR level of nano-tech should be able to easily overcome this problem). Advances in both of these areas to overcome this problem are quite possible in the next 50 years, although the nano-tech advance seems more probable. Quantum dots don't solve the problem as the problem is not electrode density but getting the ganglion cells to contact at that density.

<digs through blindguy stuff> The number varies. I've always heard 20/200 as blind. It's also the federal definition - visual acuity, corrected, of 20/200 or less.

20/60 is the standard qualifier for visually-impaired services. 20/80 is still very significant visual disability.

Yes, 20/80 is still significant, but a long way from blind, you can still function in a visual sense at 20/80, not as well as at 20/20 of course but you can. This system is a big step in the direction of useable artificial vision. Not that anyone without severe vision problems will ever likely get an artificial eye (the common nature of the cyber eye in SR is cool, but really quite silly).

I will become the world's first cyberzombie

~J

If I'm not mistaken, most of the current problems pertain not to the cybereye itself (a 3mp digital camera will give you 20/20 vision) but in the data processing and transmission end of the deal. Anything more than 16 or so pixels, and you run into some problems even if you're toting around a 8-way SMP opteron server. Some hope to tap directly into the optic nerve (much easier than brain surgery) and let the brain do a lot of the processing instead of the computer. Regardless, I would expect to see the first primitive cybereyes around 2015 or so, with all the goodies we know and love becoming options by 2016. (After all, the hard part is processing the image, not magnifying it or swapping from color to infra-red (effectively B&W)


NOTE:
By 2015, I meant that we're likely to have a functioning prototype, and not a production model. Once you've got the DSP (digital signal processing) hardware fast enogh and small enough, all you need to do is attach an external CCD setup for the other eye varieties (think flip-down lenses) and patch in the signal.

Not by 2015. It'll take longer for it to even begin clinicals. And the clinicals will be long and difficult. FDA won't let *that* get screwed up.

I saw a thing on the news once that said the CIA has tech 20 years ahead of the public, so it could be that they have this tech fully operational already. Look at the camera film they had on the moon landing, it took them almost 40 years to release it to the public as "cutting edge".