One of the requirements for flying in a spaceship used to be near-perfect vision. When NASA relaxed its vision standards (to 20/200 or better uncorrected, correctable to 20/20 each eye for a mission specialist) they in turn created a new requirement–for near-perfect astronaut eyeglasses.
TruFocals (made by Zoom Focus Eyewear, LLC) might improve current astronaut spectacles by allowing space-travelers to focus mid-float on both near and far objects, whether they’re dealing with experiments or cooling loop warning indicators. As Scientific American reports, the glasses are currently undergoing NASA evaluation for space readiness–tests that include burning. The lenses will correct the condition known as presbyopia, in which aging people’s eyes lose focusing ability, making it difficult to see near objects. That’s the condition that causes people with good eyes to pick up reading glasses, and those with glasses to turn to bifocals.
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Benjamin Franklin would be proud. The tinkerer who loved playing with electricity and allegedly invented the bifocals might have been glad to know that one company has now brought the two things together: PixelOptics has designed a pair of powered specs that can track users’ eyes and automatically adjust the glasses’ focal length, depending on if the wearer needs to see close-up or far-away.
The glasses use liquid crystals, which can change how much they bend light when an electrical current runs through them. A video demonstration of what a wearer might see is available on PixelOptics’ website, and the company hopes that the glasses will be available in the United States before the end of 2010.
Peter Zieman, director of European sales for PixelOptics, said the device uses motion tracking software similar to the iPhone, and told The Telegraph:
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A retired physics professor is trying to bring clear vision to a billion of the world’s poor. His strategy: eyeglasses with easily adjustable, fluid-filled lenses that cost just $1 a pair. His goal: distributing one billion pairs by 2020. The glasses would help schoolchildren learn how to read, fishermen to mend their nets, and women to weave clothing, he says.
According to the WHO, there are about one billion people in the world who would benefit from vision correction, most of them living in developing countries. However, in places like sub-Saharan Africa, where people make less than $1 a day and there is roughly one optometrist per one million people, glasses are an impossible luxury.
Josh Silver came up with the idea of fluid-filled lenses over 20 years ago while he was still a professor of physics at Oxford University. The glasses contain a clear sac in each lens that can be filled with silicone oil. Adjusting the power of each lens is as simple as changing the amount of silicone oil in the sacs, which can be done with a syringe through the arm of the spectacles (a process reminiscent of adjustable breast implants). Adjustments can be made by the wearers themselves and the power can range from -6.00 to +6.00 dioptre. The shape-changing lenses actually operate similarly to the natural lens of the eye, although in the eye, the shape of the lenses is controlled by muscles.
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