Plenty of research is dedicated to finding ways to improve the human condition, especially for those less fortunate than most. Cybernetic implants to help the blind to see are one such popular field, and a team at the University of Glasgow are hoping to use the same technology employed in digital cameras to create a retinal prosthesis that will pipe visual data directly to the brain via the optic nerve. The current versions are still quite basic, but they envisage smart-chip developments in the future enabling added features such as slow-motion replay – which will doubtless be fitted as standard to all football referees.

Happy birthday, artificial intelligence! The controversial branch of computer science is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and the luminaries of the field are holding a conference at Dartmouth College to thrash out the latest findings. Technology Review takes the opportunity to perform an interview with Marvin Minsky, a leading thinker in AI and proponent of the ‘society of mind’ theory of consciousness.

Curious about CERN’s Large Hadron Collider project, currently being built underground in Europe? Interested in seeing how it all fits together, what the facilities look like and (probably most importantly) what the hell it’s actually good for? Then you’re in luck – web on over to Seed Magazine, who have a little documentary movie (Quicktime) all about it. Big physics on the small screen.

The political debate in this country, such as it is, takes place primarily on television and radio. What astounds me is that the debate is rarely about the substance of political issues, but is instead about the race. Everyone wants to talk about what a poltician’s positions mean to their electability, and no one wants to talk about whether a politician’s positions are right or wrong. Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia fame proposes a different kind of political discourse, one that claims what we, the un-telegenic masses, do matters. I’m enough of a cynic to think that the Campaigns Wikia will be only a different kind of bad, but I’m not so much of a cynic that I won’t watch this with interest.

Everyone knows at least one guy with one of those fancy laser-pointers – and they always seem to be the kind of guy who won’t shut up about the things, too. Next time your acquaintance offers to light your cigar for you, remind him that the National Ignition Facility will have the most powerful laser in the world, which will focus 500 trillion Watts of power in 20 nanosecond bursts onto materials that the lab boys want to blow up. That’s the equivalent of 1,000 times the electrical output of the entire US in each burst…and it doesn’t take standard batteries, either.