degeneration

Heads Up livens up the party

Heads Up is a trivia-style party game that was recently featured (and played) on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. With the game installed on just one iPhone, you can challenge a friend or several friends to a trivia competition. While you won't have much fun alone with Heads Up, it might be the perfect app for livening up a dinner party or family event.

The way it works is, you pick a trivia category from one of seven themed decks of "cards." These aren't actually trivia categories in the traditional sense; Heads Up combines trivia with identifying … Read more

New artificial retina helps blind mice see

A cure for blindness could be brewing at a Cornell University laboratory.

Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York say they've successfully decoded the brain signals that allow mice to see. Using this information with a new type of prosthetic retina, they were able to restore vision in mice.

Next up, the researchers say they've cracked the code of a monkey retina, which is nearly identical to that of a human. If the prosthesis works on monkeys too, the researchers think they may eventually be able to help people who've lost their eyesight.… Read more

Ellen: Mock iPhone ad prompts Apple scolding

Everywhere one turns nowadays it seems that Apple is being accused of being too touchy.

First, Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" ridicules Apple after police stormed the home of a Gizmodo editor who had acquired a lost iPhone prototype. Then Apple allegedly fires one of its engineers for showing an iPad before the device's official debut to the very threatening Steve Wozniak--one of Apple's three founders. Later, Wozniak chided Apple for not being nice enough.

Now, comedian Ellen DeGeneres says she received a scolding from Apple for her send-up of the company's iPhone … Read more

Oraya's IRay earns Europe's CE mark of approval

For three years, Oraya Therapeutics out of California has been developing and fine-tuning a stereotactic device to treat diseases of the eye.

They call it the IRay system, by which researchers deliver low-energy X-rays to treat wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which--as the leading cause of vision loss in people older than 50--afflicts some 25 million to 30 million people worldwide, according to AMD Alliance International.

This week, the IRay has been granted the CE mark, certifying that the IRay system conforms to European Union safety, health, and environmental requirements.

"The CE mark requirements for an early stage medical … Read more

In Australia, the bionic eye comes into focus

Just a few months after receiving $42 million from the Australian government, Bionic Vision Australia (BVA) unveils its prototype bionic eye, which researchers hope will enable users to perceive points of light that the brain can reconstruct into images.

Announced this week at the University of Melbourne, the wide-view neurostimulator concept was developed by researchers at BVA and the University of New South Wales for patients with vision loss due to retinitis pigmentosa or macular degeneration.

The set-up includes a video camera mounted to glasses to capture images, a wireless processor to convert and send those images to the implant, … Read more

How many platforms will Resident Evil infect?

Making its debut in 1996 on the Sony PlayStation, Resident Evil (also known as Biohazard) hits the scene and becomes an over night sensation.

Capcom ran with its success releasing Resident Evil 2 in 1998 followed by Resident Evil 3 Nemesis in 1999, they were both available for the PlayStation and the Sega Dreamcast.

A port of Resident Evil 2 was released on the Nintendo 64 and all three were released for Windows-based systems. The sequels continued, fast-forward to 2009 with the release of Resident Evil 5 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and will also be available soon on … Read more