The vOICe vision BCI 🧠🇪🇺

ChatGPT - BCI Vision Strategies Shared via ChatGPT

ChatGPT: chatgpt.com/share/69ae95...

Invasive BCIs for restoring vision focus mostly on tapping into preexisting structural connectomics, while The vOICe vision BCI rather focuses on adapting synaptic weights for functional connectomics, aiming for functional vision as well as (for late-blind) phenomenal vision.

Was Einstein's genius defined mostly by his unique structural connectomics or by his unique set of synaptic weights? Conceptually: structural connectomics + synaptic weights = functional connectomics. (Yes, there's more than synaptic weights etc, so oversimplifying.) #neuroscience

A 2mm by 2mm chip (barely larger than the human fovea) will probably do little for treating conditions like retinitis pigmentosa that are characterized to a large extent by peripheral vision loss until late-stage?

MDMA enhances prefrontal plasticity and representational drift during fear extinction www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... "MDMA facilitates structural and functional neuroplasticity"

Still betting on a Neuralink Blindsight brain implant for restoring vision? www.artificialvision.com/neuralink.htm Or Cortigent Orion, or ReVision Implant Occular, or Paradromics cortical visual prosthesis? #BCI #NeuroTech #blindness

The longer one is involved in making vision technologies actually available to blind people, the more one notices the flocking behavior among companies and academics, be it around the invasive BCI hype or the AI hype. Money and attention remain driving forces. chatgpt.com/share/69add2...

Smart glasses with AI-based scene description, OCR for reading print, and visual-to-auditory sensory substitution for "raw vision" will erode the market opportunities for all implantable visual prostheses. claude.ai/share/18e83f...

'Eye level' cam: Samsung exec talks what its smart glasses could offer A Samsung exec got candid about its smart glasses, delivering information about a key feature.

Samsung exec talks smart glasses, and gives us a small glimpse of what to expect www.androidcentral.com/gaming/virtu... #AR/#XR

Broad generalisation of the ventriloquism aftereffect across sound frequencies www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The role of visual imagery and verbal coding in short-term memory conjunctive binding: evidence from aphantasia Conjunctive binding − as opposed to relational binding − refers to our short-term memory for integrated representations of a series of features into a…

The role of visual imagery and verbal coding in short-term memory conjunctive binding: evidence from aphantasia www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... mental imagery

Even after extensive training, reading with the PRIMA retinal implant is unlikely to ever become as fluent as reading through talking OCR on a phone or smart glasses, which does not require surgery or special hardware. It may help with "nonlinear" reading, e.g. in solving sudoku puzzles.

Brain Computer Interfaces Are Now Giving Sight Back to the Blind A 2mm chip restored sight more than 80% of blind trial patients, built by a former cofounder of Neuralink.

Garry Tan, VC and Y Combinator CEO: Brain computer interfaces are now giving sight back to the blind garryslist.org/posts/brain-... by @realgarrytan.bsky.social

A Materials Roadmap to Functional Neural Interface Design Neural interface engineering aims to apply advanced functional materials to seamlessly integrate neural technology with the nervous system in order to restore brain function in patients and uncover a...

Over coming weeks: honest breakdown of why BCIs stop working (mechanical + biological + conceptual gaps), what we know/don’t, and path to lasting implants.

For builders, funders, regulators, patients, curious minds.

advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

New clinical trial: Sensory substitution and brain plasticity following vision loss (#SenSubMRI) clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT074... using AI Sight and BrainPort.

Meta Lied About Its Smart Glasses Protecting User Privacy, New Class Action Lawsuit Claims Meta has been hit with a class action lawsuit, accusing it of lying about prioritizing privacy with its smart glasses.

Meta lied about its smart glasses protecting user privacy, new class action lawsuit claims futurism.com/artificial-i...

Functional MRI of brain activity during a sensory substitution task.

Cf. (2018) Functional MRI of sensory substitution in the blind pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

"The AI Sight is an auditory technology software that can convert visual information into sound patterns, which can be delivered through regular headphones." Sounds familiar?

Dealing with ground level hazards by adjusting head tilt.

Training and immersive use is also a key part of acquiring functional vision skills through noninvasive visual-to-auditory sensory substitution for the blind (using The vOICe vision BCI) www.seeingwithsound.com/manual/The_v...

(LinkedIn) Job opening for a vision rehabilitation specialist at Science Corp. in Germany www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/43... "This role is critical to helping patients translate artificial vision into meaningful functional outcomes in daily life."

FDA Push for Fake Brain Surgery Trial Spurs Ethical Concerns Katie Jackson desperately wants a new treatment for Huntington’s disease. Her husband died from the devastating brain disorder. And because the disease runs in families, her three children have a 50% ...

Original at www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Bloomberg: #FDA push for 10-hour fake brain surgery trial raises ethical concerns archive.ph/OzQgP Placebo brain surgery - the future of invasive #BCI clinical trials too?

Meta sued over AI smart glasses' privacy concerns, after workers reviewed nudity, sex, and other footage | TechCrunch Lawyers say Meta's marketing materials promised privacy and user control over sharing footage. But an investigation found that subcontractors are reviewing footage from customers' glasses.

Meta sued over AI smart glasses' privacy concerns, after workers reviewed nudity, sex, and other footage techcrunch.com/2026/03/05/m...

The FDA’s new regulations on wearable devices classify noninvasive devices as low risk, opening the door for more medical devices. spectrum.ieee.org/fda-medical-...

New clinical trial: Sensory substitution and brain plasticity following vision loss (#SenSubMRI) clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT074... using AI Sight and BrainPort.

A brain-computer interface for control of cortical population activity.

Control of cortical population activity with patterned microstimulation www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #BCI #NeuroTech #neuroscience

In any case, model stress testing alone seems inadequate (and is perhaps even redundant): one needs a guard layer at the output of the model that always limits whatever the ML or AI model may output.

Overview of framework for discovering safety violations in ML-driven neurostimulation.

Fuzzing the brain: automated stress testing for the safety of ML-driven neurostimulation iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1... Curiously, the paper does not mention known risks such as seizures like those that already happened with the Dobelle and Orion brain implant. #BCI #NeuroTech

As asked before: What is the business case? Blind people solving crossword puzzles and sudoku puzzles? Most regular print reading is done with greater efficiency and ease using talking OCR apps bsky.app/profile/seei...

"With the expected commercial launch of PRIMA later this year in Europe, Science will be the first BCI company with a vision restoration product in the market." Nope: the Argus II retinal implant (of Cortigent, formerly Second Sight Medical Products) has been on the market, and failed.