Abandonware sucks when it's your TV, imagine what it feels like when it's your Eyes

Waaaay back in february I saw this <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/bionic-eye-obsolete">article</a> and I always meant to get back to it, because it's a story that goes to the heart of the intersection of disability and tech.What happens when the tech people have become reliant gets abandoned?In the tech world, stuff gets abandoned all the time. Google is particularly famous for throwing a whole lot of tech against a wall to see what sticks, and if it doesn't stick they abandon it. Your average tech geeks house is probably filled with old devices that the manufacturer either doesn't support anymore, or in fact has gone completely out of business.&nbsp;It's one thing to find that your favourite tech gizmo stopped being supported ten years ago, because you feel confident enough to try and jerry-rig a solution when it starts playing up. How would it feel if the tech gizmo in question, was in fact your artificial eye?That's the story here. The company Second Sight was the manufacturer of a visual implant system know as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argus_retinal_prosthesis">Argus Retinal Prosthesis</a>. It was available across the globe and for many visually impaired people it provided an improvement to their vision that raised their living standards. Starting in 2002, Second Sight provided the Argus I and its successor to anyone who could pony the $150,000 USD.Things seemed to be going swimmingly for all concerned. Second Sight was providing support for the devices, more people were getting them implanted and so on. That is until 2020 when Second Sight hit the wall. They'd stopped installing new Argus Implants in 2019, but were still committed to supporting the existing devices, until in 2020, they suddenly weren't. Instead they were facing bankruptcy and so pulled the plug (so to speak) on support leaving the existing users of the implants high and dry.Second Sight is looking to merge with another company called Nano Precision Medical, however that new entity is investigating implants for drug delivery rather than implants for the visually impaired.So now there are several people out &nbsp;across the globe who are literally stuck with abandonware in their heads. There's a bit of a grey market where people are trading parts but the fact is that eventually every single one of those implants is going to fail at some point. They will then have to be removed at the users expense.I'm not super up with the protections offered to consumers of medical devices, however I'm not sure if we have a system to account for this sort of situation. What protections are there for consumers of these sorts of devices? Who is responsible for mapping out a plan to support them or migrate them to another system or no system in the case that their supplier goes poof?Like I said, it's one thing to have a cupboard full of old abandoned tech gear, it's another to lose your vision again because a company disappeared.

large_pexels-skitterphoto-1388947.jpg

medium_pexels-skitterphoto-1388947.jpg

small_pexels-skitterphoto-1388947.jpg

thumbnail_pexels-skitterphoto-1388947.jpg

pexels-skitterphoto-1388947.jpg

How do you deal with Abandonware?

large_women_in_stemm.png

medium_women_in_stemm.png

small_women_in_stemm.png

thumbnail_women_in_stemm.png

women_in_stemm.png

Women In STEMM

women_in_stemm_-_dr_Alice_Gorman.mp3

Dr Alice Gorman is a woman on a mission to change the way we look at the past and the future of human space endeavour.Starting from her family farm in NSW Australia, Dr Goreman persued her passion for archeology into University and then into the field as a consultant. From there she's turned her eyes from the digs on earth, to the history in the stars.In this episode we look at her journey towards becoming one of the worlds first Space Archeologists.Episode Notes:You can find Dr Gormans book - Dr Space Junk vs The Universe&nbsp;here:<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210411161818/https://www.penguin.com.au/books/dr-space-junk-vs-the-universe-archaeology-and-the-future-9780262539654">https://www.penguin.com.au/books/dr-space-junk-vs-the-universe-archaeology-and-the-future-9780262539654</a>The UN Program mentioned in the episode is here:<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210411161818/https://space4women.unoosa.org/">https://space4women.unoosa.org/</a>

Dr Alice Gorman

For the first episode of Women In STEMM, I thought I'd start off with someone you might be familiar with if you've listened to For Science! at all.Dr Melanie Thomsons is a gastro microbiologist, a pioneer in crowd funding research, a science provocatuer and now, the General Manager of Education, Skills and Events at MTP Connect.You can find her Women In STEMM profile here:<a href="https://womeninscienceaust.org/stem-profiles/melanie-thomson/">https://womeninscienceaust.org/stem-profiles/melanie-thomson/</a>Enjoy

Dr Melanie Thomson

Dr Katie Mack is an astrophysicist with a deep interest in the early universe and dark matter.We chat about how she got involved in her field, some of the challenges she's faced and her current projects.Also, exactly what is an Academic Nomad?Links:Pint in the sky:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL83nv8UNFC0ovxN2KyKVBtgANAS7QSVYf">https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL83nv8UNFC0ovxN2KyKVBtgANAS7QSVYf</a>Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory:&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stawell_Underground_Physics_Laboratory">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stawell_Underground_Physics_Laboratory</a>

Dr Katie Mack

Dr Eva Cheng is a Lecturer at RMIT where she also delves into the world of multimedia frequencies. She's also a supporter of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ewb.org.au/">Engineers Without Borders</a>&nbsp;and a study of humans and how they interact with science

Dr Eva Cheng

Dr Heather Bray holds a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture from the University of Sydney however her career path has taken her away from direct agricultural research into the humanities.She still has a deep interest in the science of agriculture, but she's approaching it from a different place, looking at how society and the sciences view each other.In our chat we talk about the pressures of being a scientist and a mother, the differing approached overseas, and the importance of keeping the humanity in science.

Dr Heather Bray

Dr Nguyen is the Lab Manager fo the Monash Centre for Atomically Thin Materials. Her science journey coincided with her journey into another country and a very different culture to what she was used to.

Dr Tich Lam Nguyen

Dr Evans is the CEO of BioMelbourne, has worked on helping to cure Malaria and appears quite often on&nbsp;<a href="http://www.rrr.org.au/program/einstein-a-go-go/">Einstein A Go Go</a>&nbsp;on 3RRR. In this episode we find out what attracted her to her field and some of the more interesting parts of her career to date.

Dr Krystal Evans

Dr McArthur is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering and the director of the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.swinburne.edu.au/innovation-precinct/">Swinburn Innovation Precinct</a>, an incubator setup by Swinburn university to bring together Researchers, Industry, Mentors and others.Sally is a good example of someone who while having a passion for science, didn't really discover her focus until she hit university.Notes:Castaway Awards:&nbsp;<a href="http://castawayawards.com.au/">http://castawayawards.com.au/&nbsp;</a>Women In STEMM Public Vote:&nbsp; <a href="http://%20https//thecastawayawards.submittable.com/gallery/fb53f574-b3c9-43c8-8585-83bb919489f4/6962031/">https://thecastawayawards.submittable.com/gallery/fb53f574-b3c9-43c8-8585-83bb919489f4/6962031/</a>

Dr Sally McArthur

Dr Fox has not always been a midwife, in fact for a long time, she was part of a very different scene, performing with the Melbourne Orchestra as a Concert Violinist.However when she felt the need for a new challenge, she turned to her passion for mid wifery. Her work in the field has taken her from Melbourne to Singapore, where she was involved in ground breaking work to establish SIngapores first "Caseload Model of Mid WIfery Care."

Dr Deborah Fox

For many involved in STEMM fields, heading overseas to gain experience from centres of excellence, to work, or to just find something different has become part of their STEMM journeys. For this episode I thought I would catch up with someone who's currently taking that step and seems to be doing pretty well at it.Dr Natalie Matosin is Post Doctoral Fellow at the Max Planc institute of Psychiatry in Munich, and a Forbes Top 30 under 30 entrant. No pressure.

Dr Natalie Matosin

Dr Plaganyi has two burning interests, maths and the natural world. &nbsp;So she combined them both into a career that has taken her from South Africa to Australia, from the Antarctic to the Torres Straits.It's also allowed her to get close to some of the magnificent animals in the world.

Dr Eva Plaganyi

And Women In STEMM is back.Dr Manreena Kaur is a researcher in the field of Brain Stimulation. Having cut her teeth as it were in youth mental illness, she has a passion for developing new treatments to deal with serious conditions, such as depression, anxiety and schizophrenia.

Dr Manreena Kaur

Dr Carmel O'Brien works with stem cells and bio-materials for Monash and the CSIRO. However her journey to this point has taken her from the path lab, to working with the first Australian line of embryonic stem cells.

Latest Blog Post

Latest Podcast

Latest Photo