Wear glasses? This could be your future pair!

From CNN:

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When Linda Cangemi of Grenada Hills, Calif., first started wearing eyeglasses with multi-focal lenses, she had to learn to move her head in a whole new way to see things up close, because the part of the glasses that corrects close-range focus is at the bottom of the lens. Cangemi, 50, found that wearing multi-focals complicates the process of grocery shopping. "If you're looking at something on the top shelf ... you have to tilt your head back or you have to adjust your distance," she says. To eliminate the inconveniences associated with multi-focal lenses, a company called eVision -- a subsidiary of the Roanoke, Va.-based Egg Factory -- is developing electronic glasses that could enable wearers to focus perfectly when looking out of any region of the lens.
The promise of electronic glasses is a long way from becoming reality, but there's a large target market for the product. Ninety-three percent of people over 45 years old have presbyopia, a stiffness of the eye's natural lens, which makes it unable to focus on fine objects in the near field. (The condition occurs as a natural part of the aging process.) Surgery can improve the condition, but most people simply resort to wearing multi-focal glasses.
EVision's vision is to transform prescription glasses into a foolproof electronic device that, unlike conventional specs, requires no special tricks or training to use effectively.
The eVision prototype uses microprocessors to control a minuscule electrical charge applied to a polymer or liquid crystal lens, which changes the lens' index of refraction to compensate for imperfections in the eye's ability to focus. The automatic-focus process begins with a tiny range-finder fitted on the glasses, which measures the distance between the wearer and the object. Software, in turn, calculates the amount of charge required to alter the index of refraction so that the wearer can focus perfectly. Optometrists would enter lens prescriptions into a computer that would program the microprocessor chip.
Certainly, major advances in medications and corrective laser surgeries that improve all manner of impaired vision are looming, but developers hope automatic-focus eyeglasses like these could be a solution for people who want less-invasive treatment. Still, according to Stanley Klein, a professor of optometry at the University of California at Berkeley, it could take decades before just about everyone with imperfect vision would have enough confidence in medical technology to forgo glasses altogether.
Physicist Dwight Duston, chief technology officer of the Egg Factory, thinks the eVision glasses eventually might be manufactured cheaply enough to be sold to consumers for the same price as bifocals, which cost about $400. But that's looking years into the future. For the moment, eVision's more pressing challenge is getting the newfangled specs to work correctly in the first place.
Unresolved technological problems include:
• Developing polymers or liquid crystals that do not make the electronic spectacles function as sunglasses. At present, the materials used in the prototype lenses absorb too much light to be useful indoors.
• Finding a place on the eyeglass frames for the microprocessor and the battery used to create the electric charge.
• Ensuring that the indices of refraction are accurate and do not distort images.
• Preventing humidity and particulate matter from affecting the performance of the charges that alter the index of refraction.
Duston expects to resolve these issues within two years, after which the glasses can move on to the development and production stage. The manufacturer with first dibs is New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson, which has that option as an eVision investor. At this point, the company has not made a commitment, but even if Johnson & Johnson decided not to manufacture the glasses, it could profit from a licensing agreement made with a third party.
"It's a good place for Johnson and Johnson to put their money," says Peter Sidebottom, a partner with the management-consulting firm of McKinsey & Co. "And it's cheaper than pursuing the technology themselves."

If these were on the market would you consider a pair? Why? why not?

 

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With yoga...

...you can actually train your eyes back to perfect sight. Eye-yoga.

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In my case that might not be possible. I was diagnosed last month with a cataract in my right eye. (clouding of the lens) It's hereditary and runs in the family.

 

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The human eyes

My heart does truly go out to you, my friend. I make no light-hearted, verbal gestures in this statement.

<B>I do not wish to appear as a "HOWARDSTERN", in the following statements, and I do realize that my further statements can be taken out of context easily.</b>

Having said this, I must offer the suggestion of Marijuana as a possible treatment against the <i>further development of new cataracts </i>which may develop in the eyes, even after you will most likely have the present condition corrected surgically.

I am aware that there exists quite a large amount of research which <u>often</u> claims near miraculous results.

Good luck,

Pro. Max ARTuro

ps. Knowing how research oriented that you are, I assume that you have done quite a significant amount of research on this very subject. If you are willing to discuss the <u>finer</u> points of cataract development (as well as the newest medical treatments), then I would certainly appreciate reading about such. Modern medical technology is quite a hobby for me, though I rarely make the time to stay up on new advances.

thanks again.

 

Wet1 - sorry to hear about cataract

Sorry to hear about the cataract - is it not possible to get laser surgery now? I say this as there are quite a few people here in the UK who have been to Russia for laser treatment and it appears to work, also some laser surgery has been performed here too. I wear graduated bifocals and had immense problems using them on the monitor of my pc (17 inch) so I had a special pair made with a focal point of exactly the distance from my normal sitting position to the screen - it worked brilliantly, now, instead of having to tilt my head back to look out of the "reading" section, I can see the whole screen, clearly, all over at the same time.

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Ok ok ok ok, sorry I mentioned it. I've had a lifetime to get used to the idea so it is no big deal. And is perfectly painless. I only mentioned it as for the post on yoga excerizes. Nothing like a little controversy to stir things.

 

That'll teach you ...

wet1

As helpful as everyone is trying to be, I'm glad you didn't mention your hemorrhoids

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