Seeing a solution to partial sight

A partially-sighted

(MIT) poet has developed a small, relatively inexpensive "seeing machine" that can allow people who are blind or visually impaired to access the Internet, view the face of a friend, "previsit" unfamiliar buildings and more.

The work is led by Elizabeth Goldring, a senior fellow at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies. She developed the machine over 10 years, in collaboration with MIT students and professional ophthalmologists. The new device costs about $4,000, much less than the $100,000 machine that inspired it.

Goldring's idea came after an eye examination when technicians looked into her eyes with a diagnostic device known as a scanning laser ophthalmoscope, or SLO. They used it to project a simple image directly onto the retina of one eye, past the haemorrhages within the eye that contributed to her blindness, to determine whether she had any healthy retina left.

She was able to see the image, and asked if they could write the word "sun" and transmit that through the SLO. "And I could see it," she said. "That was the first time in several months that I'd seen a word, and for a poet that's an incredible feeling."