Well, science has taken another step into future tech. Essentially since the inception of reading glasses, science has combated blindness and visual impairment at the eye. Makes sense in the most basic way. Eyes not working = fix eyes. But a new breakthrough is removing the eye and optic nerve entirely from the picture.

Back in October, a woman in Spain had a microchip implanted in the visual center of her brain. It was designed to interface with a pair of custom glasses which would transmit data straight to its destination. Through training and technicians’ adjustments, she was able to identify simple shapes, including letters and numbers. The implant was designed to be removed after 6 months, making this more a research step than a permanent prosthesis.

However, it’s a building block.

Imagine in five, ten, or twenty years, the implant becomes permanent. Resolution improves. Understanding of the visual cortex streamlines new patient uptake. The glasses get replaced by lifelike prosthesis. Blindness could be functionally eliminated.

This is also a key step along the path to development of a viable Human Machine Interface (HMI). Connecting the human brain to technology will allow for seamless operation of mechanical prosthetics, self-regulation of biological processes, monitoring of vital signs. The path to cyborgs (regardless of the type or your personal opinion of whether they’re a good idea) lays at the end of the path to a universal HMI.

You can read more about the experiment here.