A new display technology may make your glasses or contact lenses obsolete, at least when you're viewing your electronic devices.
Created by MIT's research department and the University of California at Berkeley, this new technology automatically corrects for problems with vision.
Currently, people with vision problems have to deal with glasses, contact lenses or surgery to correct their problems. For older adults, presbyopia sets in, creating problems with seeing objects up close. This becomes a problem when those adults use e-readers, smartphones and tablets, as well as view items on their car's dashboard displays or GPS units. Reading glasses can help in these situations, but it becomes a hassle to pull them out every time you can't see something up close. Other types of glasses and contacts for these vision problems have difficult adjustment periods.
"Today, of course, we have contact lenses and surgery, but it's all invasive in the sense that you either have to put something in your eye, wear something on your head, or undergo surgery," says Gordon Wetzstein, one of the display's co-creators. "We have a different solution that basically puts the glasses on the display, rather than on your head."
Researchers based this new display technology on MIT's previous research with glasses-free 3D projectors. MIT's display works by sending slightly different images to different parts of the eye's pupil. This creates a vision-correcting clear image on the display.
This method isn't without its faults, though. It does mean that image resolution is slightly reduced, but not so much that it's distracting.
Although this technology would be good for e-readers, smartphones and tablets, the MIT team suggests it be used for GPS units for those with farsightedness.
"Most people over 50, 55, quite probably see in the distance fine, but can't read a book," says Chris Dainty, a professor at the University College London Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields Eye Hospital. "In the car, you can wear varifocals, but varifocals distort the geometry of the outside world, so if you don't wear them all the time, you have a bit of a problem. There, [the MIT and Berkeley researchers] have a great solution."
We hope Warby Parker isn't too stressed out.
