MIT Creating Eyeball Chip for the Blind
MIT researchers are creating a chip to connect to the eye. The chip, cased in titanium, sticks to the outside of the eyeball. The eye's lens is still used, but light hits implanted electrodes that sends the information to the optic nerves. Users will need to wear glasses, but not for corrective reasons; but because the glasses house the power source for the chip.
They say this vision with not be totally perfect, especially in the beginning, but it should help enough for the user to identify their surroundings and recognize faces.
More from cnet.com
Rome Really was Built in a Day 
A team of computer scientists at the University of Washington's Graphics and Imaging Laboratory created three cities -- Rome, Venice, and Dubrovnik -- using photos from Flickr. Using photos from 150,000 Flickr users, this team managed to render 3D settings of each city. Videos on their main website on the project lets visitors fly through landmarks rendered in 3D. Rome and Venice are fairly limited to landmarks, however Dubrovnik is a much smaller town and you can even see things such as mountains in the distance.
It took 500 computer processors:
Rome - 13 hours to find 150,000 pictures of landmarks - 8 hours for 3D construction.
Venice - 27 hours to match 250,000 pictures - 38 hours for 3D construction.
Dubrovnik - 5 hours to match fewer photos - 18 hours for 3D construction.
Their technology builds off of Microsoft's Photosynth, but Photosynth was only meant for one landmark at a time. For a comparison, it would've taken 500 processors using Photosynth at least a year to match Venice's 250,000 photos.
Full story right here at popsci.com
Breathalyzer for Lung Cancer
Researchers in Haifa, Israel have created a sensor made from gold nanoparticles that's able to tell the difference between people with or without lung cancer. The lead researcher, Dr. Hossam Haick, says the exhalation doesn't have to be pre-treated in any way.
"We demonstrated that our device has a potential not only to distinguish lung cancer patients from healthy controls but also to identify different types of primary lung cancer," Haick said.
[From CNET.com]
Newly Repaired Hubble Telescope 
Hubble has been repaired and upgraded, and it's turning out some impressive images.
For more impressive images taken with Hubble's upgrades, check out PopSci's gallery.
full story at popsci.com
CPU In Your Eye
Have you ever seen those movies where the main character has those glasses that tell him everything he needs to know? Well, reality is one upping this and going straight to contact lenses. Bionanotechnology researcher Babak Parviz is developing contact lenses that can give visual feedback to the wearer via an embedded CPU. It can also take data from the user's eye and transmit it somewhere else. Parviz claims complex technology isn't required to create an augmented reality interface, and he believes that using lasers he can create a sharp enough interface to overlay the eye. Parviz is working on solar to keep the lens powered.
Touch screens for the Blind
It's pretty hard to operate a touch screen without being able to see the screen. A Braille touch screen for the blind, while sounding odd, is actually pretty plausible. There would be a field of actuators with an electro active polymer on top of it, and Braille pins would be raised or lowered under the screen with a jolt of electricity. Preferably, the Braille screen would be 11' by 12', large enough for a page.
While there has been previous Braille technology, they have been extremely expensive going at about $10,000 for a Braille computer. The result is a drop in Braille literacy, and only about 10% of blind people today can read Braille. The creators hope that affordable portable systems will promote Braille literacy for the blind.