"Fantastic technology and a lousy company"
More than 350 people with bionic eyes were left without the support of the developer
Georgy Golovanov, Hi-tech+
More than 350 clients of Second Sight have installed implants that allow partially restoring vision. However, several years ago, the development of this technology stopped when the company was on the verge of bankruptcy, it turned out during an investigation of the IEEE Spectrum publication. Now, if something goes wrong with the implanted devices, patients will have to get out of it themselves. Perhaps the first such case in the history of turning people into cyborgs.
Second Sight implants — Argus I and Argus II — do not restore vision in full, but make it possible to perceive shades of gray that disappear if you turn your head. The specific result depends on the patient's condition: some hardly distinguish even the basic forms, others get the opportunity, for example, to ski.
In any case, the company promised patients to regularly update the software and improve the technology, in particular, to increase the number of pixels. However, none of this has been accomplished. In 2019, the company announced that it plans to curtail the development of retinal implants. In 2020, the CEO left Second Sight, and most of the employees were fired. The company explained this by saying that it "could not continue to provide the same level of support and communication between Argus II centers and users."
"It's a fantastic technology and a lousy company," Ross Doer, one of the patients, told IEEE Spectrum. In 2019, he implanted an Argus implant in one eye and was able to see the outlines of a Christmas tree at Christmas. And a year later he found out that the company had actually closed, and he would not receive any updates.
Moreover, one technical failure, one departed contact — and he, along with 350 other users, will lose artificial vision and, possibly, will earn a medical complication. Surgery to remove a broken device will be painful and expensive.
This month, Second Sight announced a possible merger with the young biopharmaceutical firm Nano Precision Medical (NPM). None of the former Second Sight executives will enter the management of a new company that will develop a new implant for drug delivery. There were no comments about the fate of Second Sight customers.
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