A hospital in China has given a blind man a measure of sight back by implanting a chip in one of his eyes. The patient had spent 30 years without vision before the procedure took place. Once the implant was in and he had been through training, he could recognise letters and steer around obstacles on his own. Devices of this kind work by converting captured images into signals that the remaining visual pathway can carry. The case gives weight to the argument that visual prosthetics can help people who have been blind for many years, not only recent patients. Information about the device's manufacturer and the hospital's name was not spelled out in the early reports. After three decades without sight, even partial vision changes his daily routine from top to bottom.