An eye-popping invention
Two billion people have impaired vision; are you one of them? To find out, most people take a trip to the eye doctor’s. However, this can be both expensive and inconvenient. Between sitting in the waiting room and undergoing the examination, it can also be time-consuming. But what if you didn’t need to go to an optometrist to test your eyesight? What if to test your vision you didn’t need to leave the comfort of your own home or waste time? You may not have to anymore.
MIT’s Media Lab has invented a convenient way to test eyesight, and it involves something that almost everyone in modern America has: a cellphone.
At an eye doctor’s office an aberrometer test is used to assess vision. When a laser light shines into the patient’s eye, small lenses capture its characteristics. In a preliminary trial, the results of the MIT invention proved to be similar to the aberrometer test.
The process works by clipping a device onto a cellphone screen, looking into a lens, and pressing the phone’s arrow keys to make lines overlap. It measures the eye’s focus by having the person look into the lens where there are a system of smaller lenses and tiny pinholes. The software that can be downloaded onto the cellphone is then able to determine the eye’s capacity to see. When the process is done eight times, with the lines at different angles for each eye, the test is complete. Not only is it easy, but it only takes two minutes.
The team that came up with the concept for the device is applying for a patent for their product, which they call the Near-Eye Tool for Refractive Assessment, or NETRA.
Professor Manuel Oliveira explains the world-wide significance of this new invention: “Our device has the potential to make routine refractive eye exams simpler and cheaper, and, therefore, more accessible to millions of people in developing countries.”
This summer, the product will be introduced to the public as it is tested in Boston. Later, it will be brought overseas to developing countries, where some inhabitants who otherwise might go without eye care, will get the opportunity to have their vision tested.
Loran commented:
Tip top stuff. I'll exepct more now.
russlakeside commented:
This is certainly a wonderful tool that we can build on. I'm really looking forward to the addition of other minds bringing even more tech ideas to this software. All this to reduce the cost to the consumer! Oh, and the "puff" is old school. Keep up the great work!
Just Me commented:
There seems to be one big flaw in the slaw on this one, all cell phones don't have the same size screens or resolutions, so exactly how would this device work, secondly this would only test close up vision, and it doesn't really test focus problems at all, as the person would just put the phone ware they could see it, plus it would not test for things like glaucoma, cataracts and a whole host of other problems.
Trying to make a cheap at home eye test is great and all that, but making some test that only tests a few things and only on certain cell phones .... is just going to hurt people and bring law suits to the people hocking the test.
Now I'm all for real, helpful products, the medical profession simply robs people, but lets do more research and study before making claims that don't hold up to even simple review.
J. commented:
An interesting technology for sure, and does provide a great opportunity for people in developing countries to have access to find a perscription of glasses, but it misses one of the most important tests you have performed when you go to the eye doctor - a test for glaucoma (that little puff of air into your eye). This test won't eliminate the need to see an eye doctor on a regular basis any more than regular flossing and brushing your teeth eliminates the need for a dentist.
