We upgrade, update, and customize nearly everything, so why not our vision too? Reach for the stars and all that jazz. And even the tech fits the theme: some more common optical surgical procedures are actually based on NASA technology:

Wavefront technology, originally developed by NASA to aid the focus of the Hubble Space Telescope on distant stars, measures up to 250 spots in the pupil to provide a precise map of the cornea and iris. This offers the potential to correct problems not addressed by glasses, such as halos around lights at night or glare.

Fighter pilots, snipers, long-distance drivers, politicians, supermodels, and your average Sally or Joe Smith are getting eye surgery. Why? Some are doing it for vanity, to no longer have to wear glasses they may consider unsightly, or contacts that may be a hassle. Others are doing it to advance in their careers: some pilots wouldn't be allowed to fly without meeting certain vision requirements, and others just wantbetter than normal vision.

Gradually it's becoming more and more common for patients to request procedures which will over-correct or modify their corneas with goals other than simple 20/20 vision in mind. Those pilots might want better night vision and the speech givers want to avoid wearing reading glasses and request monovision. That's great, but what about that Yankees catcher who gets surgery to see the balls flying at him better? While no one will care much about other cases, there could eventually be argument that his vision surgery is some form of unfair enhancement.

Potential arguments and debates aside, it's not all just about boosting career aspirations and vanity though. Dr. Julian Stevens of Moorfields Eye Hospital, an expert on laser refractive surgery, gives an example of how "customized" vision helped a patient's quality of life:

"One of my patients led an active life and had high-quality distance vision. When he became paralyzed from the neck down, his world became smaller - reading and television. Spectacles on your nose become painful if you can't shift them." The solution? Mr Stevens made him slightly short-sighted.

I must admit that this particular example made me cringe a little bit. What are the ethics of downgrading someone's vision at his or her request even if it's for an improvement in lifestyle. No matter. There's some great potential for both good and evil in it, so I'll be paying attention to advances in this whole custom-tailored vision trend, because my death glare definitely needs some upgrading. [Times Online]

Photo by bogenfreund

Still only mini game demos though, and we won't hear much more until the Tokyo Game Show on September 24. Hopefully we'll get to see some live demos of real games, along with a finalized name and date to expect it in Spring.

Also See: How Sony's PlayStation Motion Controller Works

The eye, known as Argus II, is made by American company Second Sight. It works by using a camera and video processor mounted on sunglasses to send captured images to a tiny receiver placed on the outside of a patient's eye.

73-year-old Ron lost his site in his 40s thanks to retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited disorder that causes progressive peripheral vision loss. He is one of 18 patients across the world taking part in Second Sight's experiment.

"They said let their be light, there was light. For 30 years I've seen absolutely nothing at all, it's all been black. But now light is coming through," he told the BBC.

"It's a great privilege and an honor, I think, to be able to take part in an experiment such as this - hoping that the outcome is going to be able to bring sight to people, like myself, that were completely blind." [BBC via Boingboing]

The nurse applied a series of numbing drops to my eyeball, each stronger than the previous. The doctor clamped my lids back with a metal tool. I felt a bracket hold my eye down and someone in the operating room gave the order, "Suction."

A whirring sound commenced and my eyeball felt like it was being sucked up and out of my skull, elongated like a green grape between a Roman emperor's fingers, ready to burst. The bright blue-white light grew closer. As the pressure killed circulation in the eye things went black and I felt an arcing slice in the surface of my cornea—I did not move my jaw or tongue or mouth, but deep in my throat I uncontrollably whimpered, "THAT HURT!" and hoped no one heard me. I hoped the other eye would not feel the same. It did not, as the drops had actually taken full effect by the time it was sliced open with a beam of light. The rest was, as they said in the brochure, physically painless.

A few days earlier on Linda Del Mar beach, a wave knocked me off my longboard. Under the turbulence, both contact lenses were flushed out of my eyes. It was impossible for me to catch any more waves with the remainder of my eyesight. Although I'd entertained the idea for years on and off, it was right there that I decided to get LASIK done as soon as I could. A friend told me he'd had good success at LasikPlus. Coincidentally, my vision plan gave a hefty discount there, so I figured I would try them out. It was them or the LASIK doctor from Family Guy:

I went for a free consultation. Their office was like any other doctor's office, with one exception. In the middle—behind a giant glass window that everyone in the waiting room could see—was an operating chair situated in between giant boxy machines. They had overhanging beaks positioned as if ready to feast on whoever was strapped into the seat.

The optometrist concluded I was a good candidate for the surgery, based on having light to middle nearsightedness, slight astigmatism and otherwise healthy eyes. She showed me a brochure with all the options I could get: The $900 base package uses a scalpel to cut open the cornea and then a broad UV laser whose every zap removes tissue 1/500th of a human hair in thickness. I opted for the $2000 package, which opened the cornea with a laser instead of a scalpel and tracked a custom map of my eye's irregularities, treating it sector by sector. This wavefront guided analysis is the same tech NASA used to detect and counter irregularities in high-powered telescopes. This would reduce halos around bright lights and "dramatically improve vision." According to a study I do not know enough about to believe, it was more likely to better than 20/20 vision with such a package than without. The Navy recommends this version of LASIK for its aviators. And if it's good enough for Top Gun, it was good enough for me, regardless of cost. (These quotes are per eye.)

I was surprised to discover when I went in later that others were getting the basic surgery. I winced as one lady's eye was cut by a scalpel in a device akin to a carpenter's plane. Another lady—whose husband was getting it later depending on how hers went—complained about night vision problems but didn't opt for the costlier halo-reducing procedure. I found this astounding considering the banners on LasikPlus's site offering 0% financing.

Someone asked the nurse what the difference was between the cheap and the expensive LASIK and she said something that might not have been exactly endorsed by the company: The expensive one was like high-definition TV and the cheaper one was like standard-definition, but they both get the job done. I thought to myself, "Like hell standard definition gets the job done!" Yet everyone in the room nodded as if they were still using VHS at home.

On the Saturday before the lasering, I had gone surfing with my contacts but was told to wear glasses for the next three days to ready my eyes for the operation. Hard lenses need to be left out for 4-6 weeks before surgery since they greatly affect the shape of the eyeball.

Wearing my glasses again, I appreciated the nice titanium frames and ultrathin glass. I realized there was a lot to be said for how glasses made me feel. In 7th grade, I'd noticed difficulty making out the blackboard, but avoided getting them and got through math class by squinting. The teacher reported me to the nurse, and I got stuck with some hideous gold colored ones with horn rimmed earpieces. I felt self conscious in them, almost diminished.

That feeling went away as I grew up and earned some nerd pride, but I have always allowed myself to say geekier things and do more socially awkward things when wearing them. I could futz with my phone instead of carrying on in a group conversation, push my glasses up my nose and laugh slightly louder than usual at slightly stupider things, and expect people to chalk it up to nerdiness. I think I might miss this, for all the advantages of having laser-enhanced vision.

On the day of the operation, the doctor spoke to the patients in the waiting room. The entire procedure would take about 15 seconds per eye. There was nothing we could possibly do to cause the surgery to fail, but please do not shake our legs. (?!?) Lisa asked me at least 5 times if I was scared. It made me wonder if I looked scared, because I didn't think I was scared and if I looked scared that means I was so scared I didn't even realize it. Which all freaked me out. A lot.

Once my corneas were cut open and I experienced that initial pain, I was definitely frightened, and escaped to a corner of my mind where I would not think too much about all the things they were doing to my eyes and what my life would be like if I happened to be the "less than 1%" of patients with vision-reducing complications.

I was already in this mental cone of silence when the doctor lifted up the covers of my eyeball flaps using what looked like metal chopsticks, mixing around a stir fry while I watched, first-person perspective, from within the wok. I was shifted under the largest machine in the room, its eye a flashing red/orange light. It reminded me of a Discovery Channel feature on exploding stars. There was a sound, a clicking like that from a Tesla coil, and the smell of ozone, which went on for 15 seconds as the nurse counted down. My eyes were clamped, and I felt I was being burned alive (even though LASIK's UV laser does no thermal damage to tissue). I was told not to attempt to move or blink, which of course, makes you move and blink. The muscles in my eye fought the devices holding me steady, and before I could calm myself down, the laser had already stopped.

The doctor finished my second eye, and had me sit up. There was fog everywhere and contrast was abysmal, but my vision had improved by measures of sharpness. I slept in the car ride home as Lisa drove, and as the painkillers wore off. The hard part began: I was to avoid all optical stimulation and sleep the rest of the day. At one point, I could handle it no longer and I checked my email. All of it.

I was told that the next morning I would have a miraculous, life-changing experience as I woke up without any need for glasses or contacts. Actually, it was not so miraculous. My healing eyes could see somewhat sharply but with a lot of haze. It was similar to sleeping with my contacts in. I took off the racquetball-style eye shield I was to sleep with for a week, and began the steroid and antibiotic eye-drop treatment, which I'd also keep up for a week. I got dressed and went for my check up appointment. And that was when the miracle happened.

I got in front of that damn eye chart and, even through the haze, smoked the exam's 20/20 line. Had my eyes been clearer, I would have read the letters on the 20/15 line, too. Not bad for $4K, a laser in my eyes for less than a minute and a day's worth of healing.

After I get used to the sharpness, I am sure I will be worried about being one of the few percentage of people who walk away from LASIK dissatisfied. (Wikipedia cites four studies that indicate post-op satisfaction anywhere from 92% to 98%, but that's still a lot of people pissed off.) Even if things go perfectly, they say it will take 3-6 months to heal completely, during which my vision will be irregular. Eyeballs might be dryer at times than I'd want them to be. The biggest problems I have now are the night time halos, which supposedly will improve over time, especially with the wavefront guided method my eyes were carved up with and the terrible, terrible bloodshot I have from the suction device. They say this may take a few weeks to clear up, and while I'm waiting, I have been wearing sunglasses at night and apologizing for them. Annoying.

None of this bothers me much, save the fact that newer, better, safer technology will come around sooner or later, and my eyes may end up as out-of-date as back-to-school iPods. There is talk of using the laser to cut the flap, which is of lower disruption to the corneal tissue, to complete the entire operation, soon. And I do not know if my eyes will be forward-compatible, having already been sliced. Still, for now I remain top-of-the-line, and I would gladly endure 10 times the (mostly imaginary) pain of LASIK to gain the quality of eyesight found in elite Major League Baseball pitchers.

[Thanks to Lisa for feeding me, driving me home and taking that video.]

•Keep in mind that "we see first with our animal selves and then with our acculturated minds." In "bottom- up" seeing we may scan around an image before settling in on the main subject.

•After our animal selves are satisfied, the eye is naturally attracted to areas that generate a conditioned response—like an image involving beauty or sex or something unexpected (see above). This is called "top-down" seeing.

•The goal for any photographer is to appeal to both bottom-up and top-down ways of seeing. However, it may be beneficial to think primitively. In other words, skew towards bottom-up seeing because if the image lacks an instinctual stimulus, it may be difficult for the average viewer to fully comprehend.

•If you want to draw the eye to non-human aspects of an image, leave out (or obscure) faces. Humans tend to search for emotional significance in a face right off the bat.

•Know your eye facts. PopPhoto has presented a list of quick fun facts about the eye that can help you take better photographs. Among these tidbits of information we learn that you should avoid scenes with bright "pupil-contracting lights," taking advantage of the motion parallax can help viewers see in greater depth and if you illuminate from the above left, it will appeal to right-handed individuals. And don't forget that the eye is drawn to faces, lines, and the unexpected—so incorporate these elements wherever you can.

Despite all of this information, it seems that the key to taking good photographs is to shoot first and ask questions later. If you let your own eye guide you without your brain making too big a mess of things, you should be able to create more appealing images. Make sure to check out the PopPhoto article to get the full list of tips. [PopPhoto via NYT Image via Flickr]

The RID is composed of three parts: the light source, the light scanner and the eyepiece module. The new prototype of the light scanner is roughly the size of a bulky bluetooth headset, about 1000 times smaller than a version Brother showed at EXPO 2005 in Aichi, Japan. Again, the only thing stopping regular users from calling up stats and checking documents only they can see while strolling around town is the size of the light box:

Brother said it's planning on a public launch of the device in 2010. By that point in time, it's hoping to have gotten the light box down to the size of a portable hard drive.

With these glasses, that crazy 3-D camera, and the news that we can make stuff hover it's like all my science fiction fantasies are coming true this week! [Newlaunches.com]

An inversion of the normal, the robot was designed by artist Golan Levin to tackle the questions of "What if artworks could know how we were looking at them? And, given this knowledge, how might they respond to us?" So, with some clever electronics, Opto-Isolator looks at its viewer eye-to-eye, dodges long stares and blinks exactly a second after the watcher does.

We've all known moments when eye contact with someone either goes right or horribly wrong, shivers go down your spine, and results are either a make-out session or a thump. Who knows what ogling a robot feels like? People who visited Opto-Isolator when it was shown recently in the Bitforms gallery, New York, I suppose. And any actor who's starred alongside Jim Henson's creatures.

Let's hope someone makes an Opto-Isolator app for cellphones. It would be totally cool to have on my BlackJack, and have it pop up unexpectedly, scaring the crap out of my wife, or freaking out the cat. Maybe other gadgets should be able to give us the eye—tell us which in the comments. [Flong via Oh Gizmo]

Update: We got hold of Opto-Isolator's creator, Golan Levin, and asked him some questions.

KE: What's that creepy shiny black body made of?
Golan: The exterior shell is a 3D print from an FDM machine, with an automotive paint job.

KE: What's inside?
Golan: ...just your usual servomotors and microcontrollers. It might be worth pointing out that the entire unit is self-contained, i.e., it houses a mini-ITX format dual-core Intel PC running custom computer vision software. The only cable coming in is for power. An Arduino microcontroller board (popular with artists and hobbyists) runs the servo-motors (there are 3 motors: x, y, eyelid).

KE: What kind of programing did you do to get it to identify people watching it?
Golan: The software is written in C++ using the OpenFrameworks.cc wrapper and OpenCV libraries for face detection.

KE: Are any of your other artworks inspired by the same idea as Opto-Isolator?
Golan: I'm currently working on a constellation of projects that are all concerned with the theme of gaze as a new mode of human-computer interaction. All of these projects respond in some way to how people look at them.

So there you go, folks: keep your eyes peeled for new eerie, eyeballing artworks sometime soon.

Penny Arcade

Among the issues seen as most important were light sensitivity, achieved by using a sensor with more area per pixel, instead of more megapixel count. The 60 fps minimum requirement, for better tracking resolution, and the four-array microphone. Definitely a cool read if you're planning on using the Eye to record your own Singstar videos and show them off online. – Jason Chen

Geek Out: The Playstation Eye is Nearly Upon Us. Dr. Richard Marks Takes Us Behind the Scenes of its Birth. [Newsweek]

We're sure she screamed like the Wii Screamer, but her vocalizations were of agony, not ecstasy. – Jason Chen

Wii have a Problem [Wii Have a Problem]