Tesla CEO Elon Musk has announced that Neuralink, his brain-chip startup company, has received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for an experimental implant device which will "enable even those who have lost both eyes and their optic nerve to see".
"The Blindsight device from Neuralink will enable even those who have lost both eyes and their optic nerve to see. Provided the visual cortex is intact, it will even enable those who have been blind from birth to see for the first time," the tech billionaire tweeted early Wednesday.
He also said that "to set expectations correctly, the vision will first be at low resolution, like Atari graphics, but eventually it has the potential to be better than natural vision and enable you to see in infrared, ultraviolet or even radar wavelengths, like Geordi La Forge".
In the tweet, he even posted a photo of Geordi La Forge, a character from the sci-fi TV series Star Trek, who is blind from birth but uses different technological devices that allow him to see.
Also confirming the FDA approval, Neuralink said Blindsight received the Breakthrough Device Designation from the US government body.
The FDA's Breakthrough Device Designation is given to certain medical devices that provide treatment or diagnosis of life-threatening conditions. It is aimed at speeding up development and review of devices currently under development.
The announcement of the latest Neuralink device comes a month after Musk said the startup was planning to provide brain chip implants to eight more patients this year.
The implants are designed to help paralysed patients use digital devices simply by thinking.
