Superstar singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder lost his sight as a newborn when he came into the world six weeks early with retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), an eye disorder caused by abnormal blood vessels throughout the retina. Receiving too much oxygen in the incubator likely worsened the condition for the tiny baby, leaving him blind.
Even though he hasn’t been able to see for most of this life, Wonder (born as Stevland Hardaway Judkins on May 13, 1950) has long had vision. From a breakthrough career as a Motown child prodigy to a 2019 inductee in the R&B Hall of Fame, the Michigan-born performer became one of the most-loved American musicians throughout his decades-long career.
Even as a child, Wonder never let his vision disorder hold him back. At five years of age, he reportedly told his mother, “Don't worry about me being blind, because I'm happy.” When asked by Oprah Winfrey about the remark, he acknowledged it, saying, “It bothered me that my mother was crying all the time. She thought God might be punishing her for something. She lived during a time when things were particularly difficult for a woman in her circumstances.”
Researchers are developing a pair of high-tech glasses with a built-in camera that ping images wirelessly to the brain.
The gadget bypasses nerves between the eyes and the brain, which become damaged in most cases of blindness.
A team of Dutch experts are trialling it in Eindhoven, which has been described as 'the place to be' when it comes to blindness research.
Similar technology has been backed by legendary American musician Stevie Wonder who lost his sight as a baby.
A number of experimental therapies and gadgets for incurable blindness have emerged over the past decade amid medical advances.
Among those currently in the works are bionic eyes being trialled in the US and UK, and a trial using gene-editing tool CRISPR to cure genetic blindness. A consortium of Dutch institutions, including the Eindhoven University of Technology, are working on the project.
The glasses work by taking still pictures using an inbuilt camera at the click of a button.
The images are then transmitted wirelessly to a tiny chip installed on a blind person's visual cortex using a combination of radio waves similar to those used Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technology.
The process is similar to the natural signals the eyes send to this part of the brain was part of our sense of sight.
This part of the brain normally translates messages received by the eye into images, but the researchers believe it's possible to replicate this using tiny electrodes to stimulate the brain cells.
The scientists have not yet tested their implant on humans but lab tests and experiments on monkeys have been promising.
Developers hope their wireless model will overcome some of the shortcomings of previous implants, which were directly connected to glasses, risking infection.
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