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Mark's Robot Body: We're getting there! (Reuters) - Dianne Ashworth, who has severe vision loss due to the inherited condition retinitis pigmentosa, was fitted with a prototype bionic eye in May at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital. It was switched on a month later.

"All of a sudden I could see a little flash ... it was amazing," she said in a statement.

"Every time there was stimulation there was a different shape that appeared in front of my eye."

The bionic eye, designed, built and tested by the Bionic Vision Australia, a consortium of researchers partially funded by the Australian government, is equipped with 24 electrodes with a small wire that extends from the back of the eye to a receptor attached behind the ear.