Researchers Create Computer That Fits On a Pen Tip 110
CWmike writes "Researchers at the University of Michigan announced Wednesday that they have created the first prototype for a millimeter-scale computing system that can hold up to a week's worth of data when implanted in something as small as a human eye. The computer, called the Phoenix chip, is just over one cubic millimeter in size and was designed to monitor eye pressure in glaucoma patients. 'This is the first true millimeter-scale complete computing system,' said Dennis Sylvester, a professor at the school and one of the researchers on the project. Within the computer is an ultra low-power microprocessor, a pressure sensor, memory, a thin-film battery, a solar cell and a wireless radio with an antenna that can transmit data to an external reader device held near the eye."
That sound convenient (Score:2, Funny)
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It is, soon I can have the cheapest gas (including cost to drive there) known "for" me instead of having to look it up on gasbuddy.com myself. I will even be able to have it feed that info. directly to my brain. Just go get my implant in my forehead or wrist, and all important "decisions" will already be handled for me! I can't wait.... /end sarcasm
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Of course, it sucks when that lithium battery blows up in your eye!
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lol, you just betrayed your sig
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Reply back, does not equal reply to. It helps, and has done its intended purpose. Secret: sometimes I do reply back to, but usually only to just say how much anonymous coward means a free license to be an idiot to many idiots. Even if it is a well reasoned reply, I have if I remember to, avoided replying back. Good troll protection it is. Often, if you refuse to play the game, you already won.
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but replying to trolls is one of the few pleasures i get from /. :)
also, there's plenty of non-AC trolls around here.
troll is in the eye of the betroller.
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I would complain more that i would have to send in my eyes to get the battery replaced.. and wait for a few weeks before i get them back.
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WOW that is so cool (Score:2)
Both eyes even!!!!
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I ran across this looking for info on the book.
http://blip.tv/file/4058583/ [blip.tv]
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Indeed, impressive.
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A weeks worth of eye pressure data sampled every 15 minutes. If you had taken the time to at least skim TFA instead of writing a stupid, pointless post you might have learned something.
Well, I read it, and found that, but I didn't see any clue that would tell me how to convert that to bits or bytes. A "week" of data is about as useful as the common "Library of Congress" as a measure of information.
So please explain further why we're being so stupid when we fail to understand such units of measurement.
Re:Huh (Score:5, Informative)
My phone can store 32 gigabytes in the space roughly equivalent to a fingernail. That means the storage density on something like this is really quite low in comparison to what we have today (yes, the whole thing is in that tiny package, but I still doubt the storage area is smaller than 0.04% the area of an SD-micro card). No, the really interesting bit is the fact that they can make something that small and still keep it from causing a really nasty infection.
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I'm not sure it would need a date/time stamp for each reading since they're periodic. It might want to keep a single last-read date (or the last-cleared date) so you can calculate the date/time of the readings. Also, I doubt it keeps a floating point representation of the number. A/D converters usually deal in a fixed number of bits, so a 10 bit A/D would be able to store 0-1023, which is a little better than 0.1% resolution. For IOPs in the range of 0-50mmHg (0=eyeball deflated, 50=bugging), that's 0.05mmH
Paging Dr. Connor (Score:1)
Slashdot editor not read title (Score:2)
The big question is... (Score:1)
...does it run Linux?
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...does it run Linux?
And if not then does it have open source drivers?
not linux -arduino (Score:2)
...does it run Linux?
It won't run linux but someone will come up with a way to turn it into an arduino clone.
- World's smallest microprocessor to blink an led
(duck)
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No. They couldn't get the graphics drivers for the eye.
Let me know (Score:5, Interesting)
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I've heard from a lot of Lasik/Lasek/Whateverik patients that its not uncommon to get a fair bit past 20/20. I'm not sure if that has consequences when you need to look at something up close though, I know how horrible that feels when I'm wearing my glasses so I can only imagine how bad it must be to have your eyes do that to you... maybe it doesn't though.
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That's because your glasses have to cheat a little, which gets obvious when you look up close. Many people have better than 20/20 vision, some exceptional subjects down to 20/8 - meaning they can read from 20 feet what a normal person can read from 8 feet. They have no problem with close objects - not more than everyone else, anyway - they just see everything sharper. Just imagine it like turning the focus on binoculars, they just have another notch where they see even finer details the rest of us can't.
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I have 20/10 vision, but it's the difference between the eyes that allows such a large depth of clear vision; one eye 'leads' for close objects, and the other for objects far. Unfortunately, the 'fatigue factor' for those with vision like that is twofold; my doctor told me that I would be wearing glasses at thirty-five.
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Afaik there's never been any real conclusive proof that vision loss comes from eye "fatigue".
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I could [...] see clearly under water and through moderately unfocused binoculars.
I'm fairly certain that that has nothing to do with the quality of your vision, and I suspect that you are either lying or have memories of better sight than you actually had. If you could see a focused picture through "moderately unfocused binoculars", then the binocular's weren't unfocused in the first place. The eyes don't magically focus unfocused light that enters them. The light that enters them has to have some focus to it in the first place.
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The eyes don't magically focus unfocused light that enters them. The light that enters them has to have some focus to it in the first place.
Sorry, but you don't understand how the optics works. "Light" that exits the binocular is neither focused or not... Only the focal distance is changing. There is a focal distance setting that is comfortable for the eye, but with a bit of strain in your eyes you can see clearly even it is slightly off.
And yes, it is possible to see clearly underwater (not that I can do that!) -- without glasses or mask, that is. Some pearl harvesting folks can do that.
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From everything I've heard, that's not how it works. People with eyesight in that range have better range of focus, not necessarily better acuity of vision.
My brother is a pilot, and has better than 20/20 vision. He's approaching the age where he'll need bifocals, and is not (yet) wearing glasses. I'm not sure what his acuity of vision is, but I would be unsurprised to find it is also high.
My vision is poor. Without glasses, I can't read a book that's 18 inches (45 cm) away. On the other hand, with my
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Yeah... about 7 or 8 years ago I got Lasik; about 2 years ago I started needing reading glasses (I'm 43 now).
I'm going to find out if I can correct that, too. I don't want implanted lenses, though.
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You can't with lasik. The muscles in the eye allowing them to focus for reading just get tired as you get older. Lasik can only fix the lens.
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The problem is simply that you're getting older. Focusing close and far require different shapes for the eye, and as you get older your eyes and eye muscles get less plastic and less able to make those large adjustments. Basically, your choice is to focus far and use reading glasses, or focus close and need distance glasses. Use a secondary device to create your second focal point.
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Researching that right now in my basement lab. It's been partially successful, though unfortunately 9/10 patients become lobotomized vegetables. But we're working on that.
Let me know if you'd like to sign up for a trial.
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Good eyesight in exchange for my brains...
Let's see, I've been using my brain for close to fifty years but been wearing glasses for 40+ years...
Yeah! Sign me up!
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...when I can skip Lasik and go straight to cybereyes....
Oh sure, we could go there. But it has a wireless connection so it will be no time at all before people start getting....
wait for it...
Eye-Jacked.
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Who knows what bondage goes with metal eyes?
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"I'll see her standing by the monorail
She'll look the same except for bionic eyes"
I love that there are four visual references, using three visual words.
Standard units please (Score:2)
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Re:Standard units please (Score:4, Informative)
The thing is designed to measure eye pressure in glaucoma patients. It samples once every 15 minutes. So it would seem it can hold 672 eye pressure samples.
Sheesh... (Score:4, Funny)
Researcher Create Computer That Fits On Pen Tip
My team obviously went the wrong direction. We've just completed work on a breakthrough - a pen that's large enough to fit onto a computer - comfortably. We figured that computers were tired of just writing to disk, so we'd let them write on paper as well. The actual apparatus is so comically large, that, obviously, only a large-ish computer would want to use it.
Embarassing.
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Fits on a pen tip? (Score:3)
Okay fine, but what am I going to do with the rest of the pen? Throw it away? Sheesh, stupid researchers.
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Glad they integrated solar cell. (Score:2)
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Solar cell? (Score:3, Funny)
OK, my shot at a joke (Score:2)
A weeks worth of data on a pen-tip? How many Libraries of Congress per Volkswagon is that?
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A week's worth of data? (Score:5, Funny)
...actually that might have been a bit low...
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From RTFA-ing it's clear that the weeks worth of data only applies when "implanted in something as small as a human eye"
Presumably implanting it in something larger affects the ability to store data, but it's not clear how many library of congresses it will store if implanted into a whale.
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I think your measurement scales may be off. I've never seen a whale reading at the Library of Congress. There have been some rather large humans, but I don't think that's what you were referring to.
Phoenix? (Score:3, Insightful)
Every Phoenix project crashes & burns - should've called it "mote"!!
Imagine a Beowolf cluster of these tiny computers! (Score:1)
Even a Beowolf cluster of these pen-tip computers would still be tiny.
paranoid? (Score:2)
Eyeball botnet anyone? (Score:1)
Cannot wait until someone creates a wifi hack for this and PWN some old people's eyeballs at the nursing home...human botnet!
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Cannot wait until someone creates a wifi hack for this and PWN some old people's eyeballs at the nursing home...human botnet!
And.. what follows? DDoS attacks or spamming?
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Investment Opportunity (Score:2)
In related news, the University of Michigan received a research grant from EYE Tech [wikipedia.org].
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Your honor? we need a optical warrant? (Score:2)
"we need to embed surreptitiously an eye camera in the occipital organ of mr. Joe Seeecks pahc (must be a terrorist)"
I can't help but imagine them flicking a little 640X480 vga camera that takes 1 pic a second and can be applied without my knowledge...
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Yeeess... (Score:2)
Blaauw said in a statement. "The next big challenge is to achieve millimeter-scale systems, which have a host of new applications for monitoring our bodies, our environment and our buildings."
And a compact radio that needs no tuning to find the right frequency could be a key enabler to organizing millimeter-scale systems into wireless sensor networks. These networks could one day track pollution, monitor structural integrity, perform surveillance, or make virtually any object smart and trackable.
Yeeess, well... Although I do believe that the vast majority of these will be used for good purposes, there are a few Big Brothers in the world that might their own ideas. And these tiny things are going to be very hard to spot.
Oh Great... (Score:2)
It used to be that wanking would make just YOU go blind.
But now, our eyes will be able to record the act of us wanking, so OTHER people can go blind along with us.
Other medical applications (Score:2)
I know this is /., but seriously now....Real-time collection and reporting of blood pressure, heart rate (or not!), glucose, cholesterol, liver enzymes, O2 and PSA levels, all relayed via your cellphone/base station to your trusted medical service. These are right around the corner, awaiting only the right transducers. I, for one, welcome our new medical capabilities.
In Korea... (Score:2)
21st Century Bible (Score:1)
You hypocrite, first take the 32 gigabyte flash drive out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the millimeter-scale computing system from your brother's eye.
jus wondering (Score:1)
interceptors? (Score:1)
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Also what I thought when I saw this :)
Smallest? BTW, whats the die size of an 8051? (Score:2)
A modern day 8051 is also known as a tiny computer. It has onboard memory, cpu, clock, serial port, parallel port, PWM port, the works. It is able to drive a display directly.
There are probably better examples than a 8051 (please do suggest them), but for sake of putting things in scale (no pun intended) what is the die size of a recent 8051?
It goes without saying i did not RTFA. I just wondered.
Need many! (Score:2)
These should be a dim a dozen, on space station or shuttle flight, that way if anything ever breaks, you can pull out the ball point and let it take over, if it runs out of ink, pull out the next one....seriously though, it is nice to see the portability of it, as having more then one pc available in emergencies is amazing.
Implanted where exactly? (Score:2)
Where is this implanted? The article did not specify. I assume inside the eye but where inside the eye and at what depth? Can the patients feel it? It may be small but even a tiny grain of sand in your eye is an incredibly noticeable sensation.
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Yes, but does it run NetBSD? (Score:2)
Is there anyone working on a port?