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All Eye's On Frontiers in Optics

Between the 14th and 18th October 'Frontiers in Optics' is underway and one particular presentation is sure to grab every optometrist's attention. A new contact lens to control myopic development is being revealed in detail.

The preliminary press release on The Optical Society's website explains the lens, developed by Dr Troilo and colleagues at the State University of New York, is a specially modified multifocal which they found 'changed eye growth and refractive state, or focus, in a predictable way.' The lens is designed to be worn by very early myopes or high risk patients and it will actually help guide the development of the eye.

We'll find out more on Wednesday 17th at 8am EDT when the presentation happens. Until then the press release is after the break.

Artificial Cornea's


After a very dry month for innovative optometric related technology news this development from Fraunhofer research group looks to be an opening gambit on technology silly-season.

Corning considering Gorilla Glass-es.

Corning, the firm responsible for Gorilla and Willow glass are considering the potential for Gorilla glass products in the ophthalmic market. No information is available as to what form this might take as of now, however, in a statement to Techoptom earlier today Corning stated "The Corning Ophthalmic business is currently evaluating if a value proposition exists for Gorilla® Glass in the optical industry. If the on-going evaluation provides positive results, Corning will evaluate how to bring Gorilla in the ophthalmic industry."

So it's early days, but Gorilla Glasses might just be a reality in the near future.

Ultra-high-definition standards set

At a recent meeting of the International Telecommunications Union the standards for new Ultra-HD has been set. Its an incredible 4320p or 16x more resolution than current 1080p sets. For those number crunchers out there thats a resolution of 7680x4320. If you've just bought a new Retina screen mac-book pro and are quaking at the thought of it being low definition so soon don't panic. The first Super-HD set (a measely 2160p, 4x 1080p resolution or 3840x2160 for those number fans) is set to be released at some point next year for an eye-watering price of $80,000.

With resolutions that high who's hoping the ophthalmic technology improves for patients to be able to enjoy vision that good?

Corning taking their Gorilla to Florida

Having been providing some glass solutions since 1968 (responsible for the first glass photo-chromic technology) and having been the driving force behind the invention of 1.9n glass back in 1991 it seems that the makers of Gorilla glass, Corning, are going to be displaying at the Florida's Vision Preview 2012 event.

They'll be on hand to display their optical wares and seem to be making noises towared the optical sector. Hopefully they can bring some of the Gorilla glass and Willow glass innovations to the optometric sector.

We've asked Corning for comments on this area and are awaiting a response.

Source: Corning

Augmented Reality: Unlock that saccade



More Project glass news has been uncovered today with yet another patent filing from Mountain View. The patent covers a method for locking and unlocking your device "...using eye tracking information...". Interestingly several methods are discussed in the patent which would make accidental unlocking with a condition such as nystagmus unlikely. Saccadic movements and pursuit movements are incorporated as options, presumably for user preference. Detection of how far a user has read in a text passage will be used to scroll through the text.

This development isn't surprising given the glasses design and single touchpad approach. Making an eye movement gesture and then taking a photo with a second gesture on the touchpad or by winking etc would mean a fluid interface.

Source: USPTO

Socialeyes: It could be a real tweet

Twitter is a social media platform which continues to gain traction and following at an incredible pace. With recent rumours suggesting Apple is looking to invest heavily in the platform its future as a main player looks certain for come time to come. Do you know how to use it for your business?

Augmented Reality: Project Glass News

Its been fairly quiet since April on the Google glasses front but at the recent Google I/O conference a veritable torrent of information came out.

67 year old man regains stereopsis from watching a 3D movie

A bit of a light hearted post this from the depths of the internet, yet another neuroscientist has magically regained stereopsis, this time, not through undertaking vision therapy at age 48 but simply by watching a Scorsese film...

App Review: Crossed Cylinders

"Crossed Cylinders makes adding cylindrical lenses easy." says the blurb on the app store page, but does it? Find out in this edition of App Review.

Socialeyes: What is social media and why the # should I care?



From looking at user requests and various data I’ve gathered there’s a suprising number of practitioners out there who are not au fait with modern interactive technologies such as social media. In this series I hope to be able to break down a few of those barriers and show you a few ways in which you can utilise social media effectively in your business.

Love it or loath it websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumbler are becoming ever more popular methods of sharing news and reviews but are you looking at how to utilise them for your practise? Today I hope to provide a brief summary of what social media sites are and the concepts behind them.

New adaptive optic slides into view


Well, it's been fairly quiet of late on the technology front, but one recent development has just caught my attention. The launch of Eyejusters' SlideLens glasses.

Online sight testing

To celebrate their 100th anniversary of making precision lenses Carl Zeiss Vision have released....an online screening tool.

Augmented Reality News: Google glasses suddenly lose functionality

In a move which the observant among us would have seen coming (it was in the name of the video after all) Google have stripped the upcoming Project Glass / Google Glasses of the cool features shown, though they will come "one day". Google have confirmed that the previous full visual field filling display shown in the video is going to be far from reality for at least a while.

Pushing the (parallax) barrier: 3D Technology

Before we take a look at the impact of stereoscopic displays on the visual system it is important for us to look at the differing designs currently on the market. The most prominent two systems can be classified as with glasses and without glasses. Today we will discuss the options for without glasses.

Wavefront technology: coming to a smartphone near you

In the last few years there has been an increasing trend of Shack-Hartmann wavefront technology being incorporated into auto-refractors, such as the Zeiss iProfilerPlus and Topcon KR-1W. This is helping to give practitioners a more accurate impression of the refractive status of patients, proving especially useful for those with particular vision requirements.
                                                                                    Today we will look at both the basic principles behind Shack-Hartmann wavefront aberrometry and also a really exciting development in its use.

App Review: iSight Test by Kay pictures

Once in a while there comes along an app which sounds like it should be essential purchase. The official Kay pictures chart app is now available on the iOS App Store. It's clearly aimed at both the home/non-professional market and the optometric market alike, so does it still hold up to the physical charts? Was it worth the wait? 

Find out after the break in this weeks app review.

The future's already being printed

Further to my previous post on the possibility of 3D printed glasses, I've unearthed some companies already doing it and a growing trend for this in the Fashion industry.

In February 2012's Fashion Week there was a display by a designer called Asher Levine. Can you guess what he was showing?

Adaptive optics



On a continuing theme from yesterday, we look at a basic form of adaptive optics. I won't write much on this as the video after the break handily says all I need! Still convinced sale of spectacles is the future for optometry?

Want to print your own spectacles?

Today I'm going to talk a little about a future technology that most optometrists and dispensing opticians won't have heard about, but its a major issue, that is 3D printing..

Equipment Preview: Corvis ST

The Corvis ST (by Oculus) is an applanation tonometer with a rather special difference...

Find out what after the break.

Augmented Reality: Part 3

In part one we had a brief overview of augmented reality spectacles, predominantly from Project Glass (Google Glasses). In part two we took a look at Innovega Inc.'s amazing contact lens design for augmented reality displays. Today I want to look at some of the patents behind Google's augmented reality effort. Join me after the break...


Gorilla glass glasses?!

A tiny bit of conjecture for you all this morning having just had a patient in with some particularly wrecked spectacles. Why not use Gorilla glass!? Follow me after the break as I go bananas about this new type of glass...(couldn't resist that, sorry)


App Review: Parks 3 Step


 Made by Dr Robert Burke at Calgary Vision Centre, the Parks 3 Step app aims to simplify the potentially troublesome binocular vision test for those practitioners with an iPhone (it's not yet available on Android). It's up on the App Store for £0.69 ($0.99).



Discussion topic: automated refraction booths

Bit of a heavy topic for a Thursday evening but none the less an important one. In Hong Kong they have booths on the street which can perform a full refraction routine, including subjective refraction. They're apparently accurate enough to fall within the British standards required for refractive accuracy. Obviously if these landed in the UK (legal provision of sight test issues aside) they would pose a threat to the "quick refraction to produce sale of spectacles practices" more than the clinically high end whom aren't as reliant on spectacle sales.

But would they also threaten the core role of optometry in the UK? Thoughts below!

Augmented Reality Part 2: Contact Lenses

As if augmented reality glasses weren't enough of a mind bender Innovega Inc (no I'd never heard of them either) have announced a special contact lens which allows augmented reality displays to be focussed from one inch!

There's a great video demonstration of that after the break (albeit with a camera so not a really fair comparrison to the human eye...that didn't stop the Pentagon though!)...

Advanced Binocular Refraction Seminar

Just a quick summary for those who couldn't make the conference hosted by Carl Zeiss Vision and Supervisionaries. Its been a fantastic two days and I think my brain will take some time to recover from the information overload. The seminar was on the MKH (correction of heterophoria according to the methodology of J-Haase) technique used widely on the continent but very rarely here....continued after the break


Augmented Reality

Augmented reality displays are only ayear or two away (at most) and we already know that Oakley and Google are definitely releasing some. Find out after the break what on earth this means for optometry?



The 3D display knowledge gap

3D displays are becoming more prevalent yet there is very poor understanding of their mechanisms by the vast majority of Optomertists.

There are two main types: polarised glasses and parralax screens. I'm sure we all understand the demands that a polarised stereoscopic image has on the binocular vision system, but how many feel comfortable with the workings of parallax screens?
How do they affect patients binocular status?

Are you in your practice ready for the ongoing 3D revolution or are you being left behind and not able to care fully for your patients?

Look out in your optometry magazines for upcoming information articles about this in the near future.

Welcome

Hello,

Welcome to the technology blog for optometrists. I hope to be able to bring news, views and opinion on the latest developments in the technology sectors and the impact they have on optometry. With augmented reality displays and holographic displays coming in fast are we prepared as a profession for the huge leap is visual demands that will occur in the next ten years?

I hope you have fun reading and discussing the points. Please feel free to email any topics you'd like me to cover.

David F