Open your eyes with the camera

A man in Canada has replaced a false eye with his tiny camera.

Filmmaker Rob Spence. Picture: Daily Contributor

Independent Online reported that Rob Spence, a live-action film producer in Toronto, Canada, lost his right eye due to a wrong shot at a grandfather's hunting ranch when he was a teenager. In the past few years he has been working on a microscope that can fit into the fovea of the right eye. Camera test version was completed last year. Now, at age 36, he decides to put it in the right fovea.

The camera works thanks to a tiny battery. It does not connect to the brain and does not help Spence restore vision. Instead, the camera records everything he sees. Thanks to the built-in wireless data transmitter, the camera sends the image to a computer in real time.

Current camera versions have low resolution and poor data transfer capabilities. So Spence is developing a higher-resolution version and stronger data transfer capabilities.

"Unlike the naked eye, my electronic eye can be upgraded continuously ," he said.

Spence received the help of Steve Mann, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States. As a film producer, Spence wants to use the camera to record the most authentic conversations - which he sometimes does not do with large camcorders.

'When people see you holding the camera, their way of speaking will not be natural anymore. But if they think I do not have a camcorder, they will keep their natural attitude when they say, 'Spence explained.

Spence's characters only knew they were being filmed when the dialogue was over. Then he will tell them the truth and let them decide whether he will be using the movie or not.

"If someone does not want me to use the video, I will respect his or her aspirations ," he said.