Artist looks to replace lost eyeball with webcam

A one-eyed San Francisco artist wants to replace her missing eye with a Web cam - and tech experts say it's possible.

"I'd always given thought to using cameras to restore sight to the blind," said Dr. William Danz, whose patient, Tanya Vlach, wants the groundbreaking device. "This is a little different, more like James Bond stuff."

Vlach, who lost her eye in a 2005 car accident, wears a realistic acrylic prosthesis, but she's issued a challenge to engineers on her blog: build an "eye cam" for her prosthesis that can dilate with changes of light and allow her to blink to control its zoom, focus, and on/off switch.



"There have been all sorts of cyborgs in science fiction for a long time, and I'm sort of a sci-fi geek," said Vlach, 35. "With the advancement of technology, I thought, 'Why not?'"

The eye cam could allow her to record her entire life or even shoot a reality TV show from her eye's perspective. Vlach said she will let inspiration strike once she has the device.

"There are a lot of ideas floating around...nothing too exploitative," said Vlach. "I don't want to be a spy and infringe on people's rights, and at the same time, there are amazing possibilities."