Blind Soldier 'Sees' With His Tongue

(CANVAS STAFF REPORTS) - A potential revolution in treating blindness could be on the tip of the tongue. It's a mini video camera with a "lollipop" that's placed on the tongue. A British soldier blinded in Iraq is testing the device, a newspaper reported Thursday.

"It feels like licking a nine-volt battery or like popping candy," Lance Corporal Craig Lundberg told the Guardian .

Here's how it works: the camera, attached to a pair of sunglasses, is wired to a plastic sensor that users place on their tongue.

The British Defense Ministry chose Lundberg to test the BrainPort, which converts visual images into a series of electrical pulses. Those impulses are relayed to the tongue and allow the 24-year-old veteran to see shapes and read.

Lundberg, who is using the prototype, said: "The potential to change my life is massive. It has enabled me to pick up objects straight away, I can reach out and pick them up when before I would be fumbling around."

A rocket-propelled grenade blinded Lundberg three years ago while the Liverpool native was serving in Basra.

Retired U.S. Major General Gale Pollock worked on developing the BrainPort. He told the Guardian that the device sends information to 400 points on the tongue connection.

The BrainPort is among the growing list of devices that aims to help people regain lost senses.

In the United States, a blind woman received an experimental implant that restored some rudimentary vision. The Ohio woman was among 17 people worldwide who took part in testing on the Argus II system.

Last year, scientists in Italy experimented with a robotic hand that an amputee could control with his thoughts . Researchers said the LifeHand allowed the man to feel sensation in the artificial limb.

Various thought-controlled prosthetics have been in development in the United States for several years.