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Technology    Photos-Audio-Video        Archives

News & Announcements

On This Page
 

• HAB 46th Annual Convention
• AFB Launches Described TV Listings!
• Artificial Retina Receives FDA Approval
• Lions 66th Annual Picnic for the Blind
• Alpha IMS * Retinal Prosthesis
• Things That Annoy The Blind
• ACB 52nd Annual Convention
   

HAB 46th Annual Convention

The Hawaii Association of the Blind celebrated it 46th Annual Convention last
March 9, 2013 at the Pagoda Hotel in Honolulu. It was well-attended by
individuals from different sectors of the community including government,
education, library, students and blind and visuall-impaired. Some have commented
that attendance was one of the highest in HAB's history.

Outgoing President Warren Toyama welcomed the audience as he explained some
changes in the proceedings to accommodate the arrival of retiring DVR
Administrator Joe Cordova from Portland, oregon that morning.

We really appreciate a very good turn-out from Ho'Opono starting from its
Administrator, Lea Grupen , staff and clients/students. Also well represented
were the VI teachers from Oahu and other islands. Present, too, were HAB'S
FRIENDS FROM THE MAINLAND - Al and Connie Gil from Washington state and Donna
Seliger from Des Moines, Iowa who make it a point to attend our annual
convention.

One of the highlights of this year's annual convention is the transition of
leadership in our organization. Filo Tu is taking over Warren Toyama's reign as
President. Although this is not the first time Filo is taking the presidency,
still it comes as a respite for Warren who's been at the helm steering HAB's
momentum to various endeavors.

Admittedly, Filo is filling a big size shoes but nonetheless welcomes the
challenge and promised to do his best.

In recognition of a job well done, Ho'Opono Services for the Blind through its
Administrator, Lea Grupen presented a plaque of appreciation to the Hawaii
Association of the Blind for all the support both financial and advocacy which
helped and is still helping the agency tide the hurdles of the current economic
times.

Like the morning session, the banquet was also packed with guests to the point
that we had to add tables to accommodate people in the ballroom.

Re-live the fun, fellowship, emotion and delivery of information from our
convention speakers by listening to actual audio footages of HAB 46th Annual
Convention. Click on the links below to stream audio to your computer:

 

AAA

Sharon Ige

Audio Described Videos

Sue Sugimura

Library for the Blind & Physically Handicapped

Mitch Pomerantz

American Council of the Blind

BBB

Lea Grupen

Ho'Opono Services for the Blind

Dean Giordin

Ho'Opono Adjustment Section Supervisor

Presentation of Plaque of Appreciation to HAB

from Ho'Opono Services for the Blind

CCC

Elections

DDD

Joe Cordova

Outgoing Administrator, Division of Vocational Rehabilitation

EEE

Resolutions

FFF

Banquet

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AFB Launches Described TV Listings!
Finding Described TV Just Got Much Easier!
For further information, contact:
Mark Richert, Esq.
Director, Public Policy, AFB
(202) 469-6833
MRichert@afb.net

The landmark Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act
(CVAA) has begun a revolution in mainstream telecommunications and video
technology accessibility.

Among its many groundbreaking achievements, the CVAA mandates several of the most
popular television networks to make some of their prime-time and children's
programs accessible to viewers with vision loss by adding video description. To
help celebrate and promote this achievement, AFB has implemented a Described TV
Listings page on our website, an online guide where visitors can determine which
shows will be described as well as when they air.

Video description (sometimes called "audio description" or simply "description")
makes television programs and movies accessible for people who are blind or
visually impaired. Short verbal descriptions of action or key visual scenes in a
program, such as setting, costumes, and facial expressions, are provided to add
context.
The descriptions are inserted into pauses within a program's dialog.
Since July 1, 2012, the networks required to each provide approximately four
hours of video description per week include ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, USA, the Disney
Channel, TNT, Nickelodeon, and TBS. This expanded array of choices is a much-
fought-for complement to the current rich menu of described programming that PBS
has offered for many years.

AFB's Described TV Listings initiative makes it easier to find which shows are
described, allowing people with vision loss to enjoy their favorite shows
alongside their sighted peers. AFB is deeply grateful to the Rovi Corporation and
Comcast for helping us create this valuable tool.

To learn which programs are being described and when they will air in your area,
and to learn more about how to access them on your television, visit:
http://www.afb.org/tv


**********

Press Release 13-026
Artificial Retina Receives FDA Approval
Argus II is first approved prosthesis to restore limited vision to those blinded
by retinitis pigmentosa

February 14, 2013

B-roll and VNR are available. Please contact Dena Headlee at dheadlee@nsf.gov or
(703) 292-7739.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted market approval to an
artificial retina technology today, the first bionic eye to be approved for
patients in the United States. The prosthetic technology was developed in part
with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The device, called the Argus® II Retinal Prosthesis System, transmits images from
a small, eye-glass-mounted camera wirelessly to a microelectrode array implanted
on a patient's damaged retina. The array sends electrical signals via the optic
nerve, and the brain interprets a visual image.

The FDA approval currently applies to individuals who have lost sight as a result
of severe to profound retinitis pigmentosa (RP), an ailment that affects one in
every 4,000 Americans. The implant allows some individuals with RP, who are
completely blind, to locate objects, detect movement, improve orientation and
mobility skills and discern shapes such as large letters.

The Argus II is manufactured by, and will be distributed by, Second Sight Medical
Products of Sylmar, Calif., which is part of the team of scientists and engineers
from the university, federal and private sectors who spent nearly two decades
developing the system with public and private investment.

"Seeing my grandmother go blind motivated me to pursue ophthalmology and
biomedical engineering to develop a treatment for patients for whom there was no
foreseeable cure," says the technology's co-developer, Mark Humayun, associate
director of research at the Doheny Eye Institute at the University of Southern
California and director of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Biomimetic
MicroElectronic Systems (BMES). "It was an interdisciplinary approach grounded in
biomedical engineering that has allowed us to develop the Argus II, making it the
first commercially approved retinal implant in the world to restore sight to some
blind patients," Humayun adds.

The effort by Humayun and his colleagues has received early and continuing
support from NSF, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy,
with grants totaling more than $100 million. The private sector's support nearly
matched that of the federal government.

"The retinal implant exemplifies how NSF grants for high-risk, fundamental
research can directly result in ground-breaking technologies decades later," said
Acting NSF Assistant Director for Engineering Kesh Narayanan. "In collaboration
with the Second Sight team and the courageous patients who volunteered to have
experimental surgery to implant the first-generation devices, the researchers of
NSF's Biomimetic MicroElectronic Systems Engineering Research Center are
developing technologies that may ultimately have as profound an impact on
blindness as the cochlear implant has had for hearing loss."

Although some treatments to slow the progression of degenerative diseases of the
retina are available, no treatment has existed that could replace the function of
lost photoreceptors in the eye.

The researchers began their retinal prosthesis research in the late 1980s to
address that need, and in 1994 Humayun received his first NSF grant, an NSF Young
Investigator Award, which built upon additional support from the Whittaker
Foundation. Humayun used the funding to develop the first conceptualization of
the Argus II's underlying artificial retina technology.

Since that time, he and his collaborators--including Wentai Liu of the University
of California, Los Angeles and fellow USC researchers Jim Weiland and Eugene de
Juan, Jr.--received six additional NSF grants, totaling $40 million, some of
which was part of NSF's funding for BMES, launched in 2003. BMES drives research
into a range of sophisticated prosthetic technologies to treat blindness,
paralysis and other conditions.

"We were encouraged by the team's exploratory work in the 1980s and 1990s,
supported by NSF and others, which revealed that healthy neural pathways can
carry information to the brain, even though other parts of the eye are damaged,"
adds Narayanan. "The retinal prosthesis they developed from that work simulates
the most complex part of the eye. Based on the promise of that implant, we
decided in 2003 to entrust the research team with an NSF Engineering Research
Center," says Narayanan. "The center was to scale up technology development and
increase device sensitivity and biocompatibility, while simultaneously preparing
students for the workforce and building partnerships to speed the technology to
the marketplace, where it could make a difference in people's lives. The center
has succeeded with all of those goals."

The researchers' efforts have bridged cellular biology--necessary for
understanding how to stimulate the retinal ganglion cells without permanent
damage--with microelectronics, which led to the miniaturized, low-power
integrated chip for performing signal conversion, conditioning and stimulation
functions. The hardware was paired with software processing and tuning algorithms
that convert visual imagery to stimulation signals, and the entire system had to
be incorporated within hermetically sealed packaging that allowed the electronics
to operate in the vitreous fluid of the eye indefinitely. Finally, the research
team had to develop new surgical techniques in order to integrate the device with
the body, ensuring accurate placement of the stimulation electrodes on the
retina.

"The artificial retina is a great engineering challenge under the
interdisciplinary constraint of biology, enabling technology, regulatory
compliance, as well as sophisticated design science," adds Liu. "The artificial
retina provides an interface between biotic and abiotic systems. Its unique
design characteristics rely on system-level optimization, rather than the more
common practice of component optimization, to achieve miniaturization and
integration. Using the most advanced semiconductor technology, the engine for the
artificial retina is a 'system on a chip' of mixed voltages and mixed analog-
digital design, which provides self-contained power and data management and other
functionality. This design for the artificial retina facilitates both surgical
procedures and regulatory compliance."

The Argus II design consists of an external video camera system matched to the
implanted retinal stimulator, which contains a microelectrode array that spans 20
degrees of visual field. The NSF BMES ERC has developed a prototype system with
an array of more than 15 times as many electrodes and an ultra-miniature video
camera that can be implanted in the eye. However, this prototype is many years
away from being available for patient use.

"The external camera system-built into a pair of glasses-streams video to a
belt-worn computer, which converts the video into stimulus commands for the
implant," says Weiland. "The belt-worn computer encodes the commands into a
wireless signal that is transmitted to the implant, which has the necessary
electronics to receive and decode both wireless power and data. Based on those
data, the implant stimulates the retina with small electrical pulses. The
electronics are hermetically packaged and the electrical stimulus is delivered to
the retina via a microelectrode array."

In 1998, Robert Greenberg founded Second Sight to develop the technology for the
marketplace. While under development, the Argus I and Argus II systems have won
wide recognition, including a 2010 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award and a
2009 R&D 100 Award, but it is only with FDA approval that the technology can now
be made available to patients.

"An artificial retina can offer hope to those with retinitis pigmentosa, as it
may help them achieve a level of visual perception that enhances their quality of
life, enabling them to perform functions of daily living more easily and the
chance to enjoy simple pleasures we may take for granted," says Narayanan. "Such
success is the result of fundamental studies in several fields, technology
improvements based on those results and feedback from clinical trials--all
enabled by sustained public and private investment from entities like NSF."
For more, please see an NSF Science Nation video on the Argus I technology, and
read more about the early stages of development for both devices in this feature
story.

**********

Lions 66th Annual Picnic for the Blind and Visually Impaired

Where: Manawale`a Riding Center 41-170A Waikupanaha Street, Waimanalo
Date: Saturday April 13, 2013
Time: 10:00am-3:00pm

The Ko`olaupoko Lions Club in coordination with Manawale`a Branch Club, Ho`opono
and the Lions Clubs of Oahu would like to invite you to join us for a day of
ranch fun for everyone!

Activities include: Horseback riding (covered shoes & long pants required to
ride), ono ranch style lunch, games & prizes, Country Western Talent Contest and
Western Themed Costume Contest

Please call Ho`opono at 586-5269 by April 6. To make reservations for the picnic
and to arrange bus transportation, provided by the Lions. Important bus
information: be at Ho`opono by 9:00am. The bus leaves at 9:30am and will return
to Ho`opono at 3:30pm.

Manawale`a Riding Center Phone: 352-1523. From Kalanianaole Highway, turn on
Hihimanu Street toward the mountain and turn left on Waikupanaha Street (0.2mi)-
Look for the signs.

Gavan Abe
Ho`opono- Community Services Coordinator
1901 Bachelot Street
Honolulu, HI 96817
(808) 586-5271
gabe@dhs.hawaii.gov
www.hawaiivr.org/hoopono

************

Retinal Implant Alpha IMS Brings Sight to Blind in New Study
by Gene Ostrovsky on Feb 21, 2013 • 3:04 pm
http://www.medgadget.com/2013/02/retinal-implant-alpha-ims.html

Retina Implant AG, a German developer of subretinal implants to help restore
sight of people with retinitis pigmentosa, has announced publication of results
of a new clinical trial of its Alpha IMS system. Nine blind people received the
3×3 mm wireless microchip implants that feature a 1500 pixel resolution. The
implants capture light and in turn stimulate the optic nerve, which delivers
visual signal data to the brain.

A distinct advantage of the Alpha IMS is that, unlike other similar devices such
as the recently released Argus II, it does not rely on an external camera.
Instead, light is detected inside the eye, enabling the patient to look around by
moving his eyes rather than the head. It also has a much higher resolution grid
and is implanted under the retina, allowing the middle layer of the retina to
process the input before it is sent to the visual cortex.

In the study, a majority of the participants had functional vision restored and
two of the subjects developed visual ability considerably more substantial than
seen in the initial clinical study of the Alpha IMS. Three of the people were
able to read large printed letters spontaneously post implantation.

From Retina Implant AG:

The Company’s first clinical trial began in Germany in 2005, where 11 patients
suffering from retinitis pigmentosa were implanted with a subretinal microchip
below the retina in the macular region. Results from the first trial were
published in November 2010 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, concluding that
the implantation of Retina Implant’s microchip was successful in restoring useful
vision in patients previously blind due to retinitis pigmentosa. The second
clinical trial with a wireless device that allows patients to use the implant
outdoors and at home began in May 2010 in Tuebingen, Germany, and has since
expanded into the multicentre phase of the trial with implants taking place in
Hong Kong and the UK.

Electrical stimulation via the 4 x 4 direct stimulation electrode array.
Presentation of 5 different letters. The letters I,L,O,T, and V were presented
singly to the patient by sequentially activating electrodes with single pulses,
using fixed voltage increments above the previously determined threshold. Pulse
durations were 4 to 7 ms, with 208 ms between the activation of two electrodes.
The sequence was shown only once per run. After one letter, a period up to 45 s
was provided for the patient to give his answer, and for the bioengineer on the
left (not shown in the movie) to set up the next letter, indicated silently by
the investigator. The letters combine to the word “VOLT”, correctly named by the
patient but never presented previously to him.


From the announcement:

The implant used in this clinical study is the result of an ongoing, long-term
cooperation of the University Eye Hospitals in Tübingen and Regensburg, the
Institute for Microelectronics in Stuttgart (IMS), the Natural and Medical
Sciences Institute (NMI) in Reutlingen as well as the Retina Implant AG and Multi
Channel Systems (MCS), both located in Reutlingen. MCS the external control
electronics for the chip which was developed and produces by IMS. The NMI has
been involved in the subretinal implant since 15 years. Apart from the technical
development of electrodes for safe long-term stimulationm biostable coating
materials and flexible conducting matrials, NMI has been conducting biophysical
research for electrical retinal stimulation. This provided guidelines for the
design of the implant, feasible stimulus strenths for retinal stimulation, and
for reasonable distances between the 1500 stimulating electrodes.

Study in Proceedings of The Royal Society B: Artificial vision with wirelessly
powered subretinal electronic implant alpha-IMS

More from Institute for Ophthalmic Research, University of Tübingen: Recent
publication on groundbreaking performance of the Tübingen Subretinal Implant

Announcement: Retina Implant AG Announces the Publication of Study Results on its
Alpha IMS Implant in Proceedings of the Royal Society B

More technical details are available from
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1757/20130077.full

**************


Things That Annoy the Blind

http://mycheesegrits.hubpages.com/hub/Pet-Peeves-of-the-Blind-and-Visually-
Impaired


**********

American Council of the Blind
52nd Annual Conference and Convention
July 4 - 12, 2013
Hyatt Regency Hotel
Columbus, Ohio

Start planning now to explore Columbus with ACB in 2013.
The conference and convention will be packed with
workshops, seminars, programs, technology, tours and
fun; be there.

The first tour will be on Thursday, July 4; general
sessions will begin on July 6. The banquet will be on
Thursday, July 11, with the last tour on Friday, July
12.

Room rates are $89 plus tax per night (single, double,
triple, quad). Make reservations by phone by calling
888-421-1442, or make reservations on-line here at
https://resweb.passkey.com/go/acb2013.

Email Janet Dickelman, ACB Convention Co-ordinator, at
janet.dickelman@gmail.com with specific questions or
concerns, or call her at (651) 428-5059.