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Biotech Science

Coming Soon, Super Vision 230

Posted by CmdrTaco from the still-waiting-for-x-ray-specs dept.
lil_nohreaga writes "Wired is reporting that several companies are developing electronically controlled lenses to provide enhanced vision. From the article: Thanks to technologies created for astronomical telescopes and spy satellites, aberrometers can map a person's eye with extreme accuracy. Lasers bounce off the back of the eyeball, and structures in the eye scatter the resulting beam of light."
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Coming Soon, Super Vision More

Coming Soon, Super Vision

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  • Other applications (Score:5, Informative)

    by BWJones ( 18351 ) * on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @10:18AM (#14669511) Homepage Journal
    Other potential applications of this technology include the ability to help people with retinal degenerative diseases prolong their useful vision by dynamically mapping projections of images to other areas of the retina that are not affected by degeneration. Of course this will do nothing for the degenerative process, but it could buy some folks a bit more time until we can perfect retinal interventions (biological and/or bionic) to rescue vision loss.

    As an aside, this technology to measure the optics of the eye is currently used in many procedure to correct vision such as in LASIK. You can read a little bit about LASIK and see a movie of the procedure here [utah.edu].

    • Re:Other applications (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MindStalker ( 22827 ) <mindstalker AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @10:25AM (#14669567) Journal
      If these lenses can change optics on the fly, wouldn't it be possible with some extra controll mechanisms to be able to optically zoom as well, that would really rock.

      • Re:Other applications (Score:4, Funny)

        by master_p ( 608214 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @11:29AM (#14670091)
        And then Bill Gates is the first person to afford such a device, thus making the Slashdot Gates-borg icon a reality!
      • with some extra controll mechanisms to be able to optically zoom as well


        That's exactly what I need. My blonde neighbour always draws the shades whenever she sees me pointing my telescope at her bedroom window. With zoom I wouldn't need any telescope, and if I got a retina remapping too, I could pretend to be looking to the other side as well...

      • It'd be nice, but I think just being able to see clearly would be a welcome first step. My dad is legally blind without his glasses/contacts I'm pretty sure (probably about 20/4000 vision) and apparently his eyes are too bad for laser surgery, as most places won't do it at all if they can't fully correct it, so he's stuck with some rediculously strong perscription.

        But in-eye optical zoom would certainly be nice. I'll tell you, creating a custom ipod theme is a biatch to do... anyone who's tried to count

    • There are grades too. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by skids ( 119237 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @10:46AM (#14669720) Homepage
      The technology is still improving so I always tell my friends they might want to hold off on "getting etched" unless they just can't stand the contacts anymore. Might as well get the best possible correction.

      What makes me wonder about this article is that although the PR makes it sound like these lenses move around while you're wearing them, I see nothing that actually says that. The other company doing "optimized" optics seems to just grind a lense based on scans. So does that mean you have to hold your eyes steady? If so I think I'll wait until they get something that dynamically tracks the eye before I get what would be for me a cosmetic product.

      For that matter, maybe I'll wait until they have a switch-on binocular/microscope mode built in too.

      • Re:There are grades too. (Score:5, Informative)

        by BewireNomali ( 618969 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @10:53AM (#14669765)
        dude, that's good advice.

        i just did freelance consulting work with an influential investment banker here in NY. He's in his 50s, and he had the procedure done 6-7 years ago by Tiger Woods' doctor (for those unaware, Tiger Woods had his vision enhanced to 20/15 or 20/10 in order to give himself a golfing advantage). All of which to say is that he can't see now.

        I asked him about it several times and pride prevented him from being truthful about it. But finally he confided in me and said that his vision has degraded significantly in the past year. He also mentioned that some of his older colleagues who have have laser correcting surgery have had similar degradations in vision. I know that this guy has had at least one "correction" done, but he now has his secretary reading his own emails to him.

        So it sounds like its a good idea to not get lasik done unless you absolutely have to or are aware of enhancements that improve the long term prognosis for eye health.

        Other than that, this is such a FUCK AMAZING TIME TO BE ALIVE!!!!!

        • Re:There are grades too. (Score:5, Interesting)

          by rossifer ( 581396 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @11:50AM (#14670295) Journal
          i just did freelance consulting work with an influential investment banker here in NY. He's in his 50s, and he had the procedure done 6-7 years ago by Tiger Woods' doctor (for those unaware, Tiger Woods had his vision enhanced to 20/15 or 20/10 in order to give himself a golfing advantage). All of which to say is that he can't see now.

          But Tiger Woods can still see very, very well without any further correction. So what's the difference between them?

          The difference is that your friend didn't take his doctor's advice, and was a poor candidate for laser correction because his vision was not stable and was in the process of degrading. So the surgery corrected his vision at that moment and his eyes continued to change.

          Wealthy people seem to be more prone to these kinds of errors in judgement and an "investment banker in NY" would seem to qualify him with brass knobs.

          My eyes have been stable since I was 18. Left eye great (20/15), right eye not so great (20/80 w/ astigmatism). Turns out I'm a very good candidate for long-term improvement from laser surgery. I'm now in the process of saving up money for correcting the single eye.

          Regards,
          Ross

          • Re:There are grades too. (Score:5, Informative)

            by pnuema ( 523776 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @02:11PM (#14671689)
            As the husband of a former optician whose eyes are so bad she is legally blind, I'd advise you to hold off. Complication rate on LASIK is low, but still significant enough that there is no way she would touch it. New technologies such as implanted contact lenses look like they are performing better and hold less risk. With 20/80 vision, you are essentially inconvenienced - you can still see fine out of one eye, and 20/80 is not really that bad (to put it in perspective, my wife is closer to 20/800).

            Think of it this way - would you risk a 1% chance of blindness to avoid having to wear glasses for 10 years (until the new tech develops)? No thanks, I'll pass.

            • "Complication rate on LASIK is low, but still significant enough that there is no way she would touch it..."

              Well, I keep noticing that most of the doctors I see performing LASIK, are all themselves wearing GLASSES.

              That kind of scares me away from doing it to myself....

            • He'd only be blind in one eye, and it would be a great excuse to wear an eyepatch with a skull and crossbones.

        • Re:There are grades too. (Score:2, Informative)

          by benbean ( 8595 )
          Just my 2p,

          I had LASIK done about 5 years ago and I'm still 20/20 with no problems, halos, signs of weakening eyes, scratches and all the other standard horror stories.

          YMMV of course.
      • The technology is still improving so I always tell my friends they might want to hold off on "getting etched" unless they just can't stand the contacts anymore. Might as well get the best possible correction.

        Somewhat true. Decent advice anyway.

        The latest refinement appears to be the "no cutting" or "pure laser" systems that are just appearing in clinics. These don't require the slicing of the cornea, presumably because the laser can be accurately focused to disrupt cells at specific locations within the c
      • Lasik is pretty mature. It and its predecessor, RK (lasik with knives,) have been around for about 25 years. They can get most people to better than 20/20 vision, and even if your vision is really bad, they can get you close enough that you probably won't have to wear glasses.

      • re: the risks? (Score:3, Informative)

        by King_TJ ( 85913 )
        Several years ago, I knew a woman who was finishing up her studies to become an optometrist, and she told me one time that I should be very concerned about the Lasik procedures out there, and didn't recommend having it done at all.

        I don't know how much fact there was to it, but she claimed that the "dirty little secret" of Lasik is that it more or less casues eventual legal blindness in around .5% to 1% of patients. They tend not to inform people of the real risk because it's such a profitable business, an
        • Unfortunately, there are people in any field that will tell you whatever it takes to get your money. It is true that a small percent suffer permanent eye damage or blindness. Lasik is still a skill-based procedure. Finding the right doctor is crucial.

          If you are concerned about this, I recommend this site:
          http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/lasik/ [fda.gov]

          As with everything, a healthy bit of skepticism should be employed with any "too good to be true" offer.

  • Great (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @10:21AM (#14669533)
    Guess it's time to throw away those X-ray glasses I got by saving a bazillion bazooka chewing gum comics.

  • A crutch? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by op12 ( 830015 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @10:21AM (#14669538) Homepage
    Would your eyes (or brain) adapt to that making your vision much worse when you're not wearing these "enhanced" glasses? (In much the same way as increasing eyeglass prescriptions cause your eyesight to deteriorate further and increase your prescription again.)

    I suppose it's only a matter of time before they make it so the thing is in your eye all the time (in contacts or implant form - I wonder if it could emit a red light to those looking at you? :)

    • Re:A crutch? (Score:4, Informative)

      by omeomi ( 675045 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @10:55AM (#14669774) Homepage
      (In much the same way as increasing eyeglass prescriptions cause your eyesight to deteriorate further and increase your prescription again.)

      I don't know this for sure, but I have to think that this thought is nothing more than a marketing gimmick from the Lasik community. I wear glasses, and have had roughly the same prescription for the last 15 years. When my prescription has changed, it hasn't been by enough to make any noticeable difference, and the only reason I've changed it has been because I've gotten new glasses because my old glasses have gone out of style (or, once, because I sat on them). Most other people I know with glasses are in approximately the same situation--their vision got a bit blurry in childhood for some reason, but hasn't changed much since then. So the thought that glasses will actually make your eyes worse over time is ridiculous, the opposite seems more logical. If I don't wear glasses, my eyes will be under more strain, and will get worse. Wearing glasses should preserve my vision...

      • Re:A crutch? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by op12 ( 830015 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @11:02AM (#14669831) Homepage
        From here [preventmyopia.org]:

        "Usually, eye doctors will prescribe distance glasses for correcting blurred distance vision. Unfortunately, distance glasses actually make nearsightedness worse and irreversible. This is because they force the focusing muscles to stay locked up. This in turn forces the eyes to further elongate, resulting in the need for stronger distance glasses as time goes by. The child is thus doomed to a lifetime of total reliance on distance glasses to see distant objects clearly and progressively worsening nearsightedness. Distance glasses are a false friend.

        There is an alternative - reading glasses. If a child starts wearing reading glasses for prolonged periods of reading and other close work at the first sign of any difficulty with distance vision, the focusing muscles will relax and cannot lock up. Reading glasses relax the eyes. There should be no further elongation of the eye. Distant objects can be seen without the need for any glasses. It is important to note that the child will not be reliant on reading glasses. They are simply a protective tool that should be used during long periods of close work. If strong enough reading glasses are used, nearsightedness should be prevented."

        • Re:A crutch? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by vodkamattvt ( 819309 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @11:36AM (#14670148) Homepage
          The parent is definately correct. This is cutting edge .. many doctors still refuse to acknowledge this. If you ask your eye doctor about it and he/she dismisses it, go and get another eye doctor that at least tries to keep up with modern science.

          Original parents assertion that no one he knows eyes have gotten worse .. all of my friends (in their 20s, as well as my sister) have had their eyes deteriorate terribly and seen their diagnosis go from -1 down to -7 or more. This does not occur if you need reading glasses, or if you have a stigmatism. This is for myopia (nearsightedness).

          My eyes had started to blur after years of computer work and reading and I went to get contacts. I use reading glasses as well (although Im only at -.5) to prevent more vision loss. My sister had her vision down to -7 at age 21. She was just told to get reading glasses for close work to prevent more vision loss. So the good news is that the medical establishment is finally catching on (albeit slowly probably because the worse your eyes get the more $$ they get).

          • I'm rather nearsighted, and have been wearing glasses every waking minute since I was about 6 years old. My vision "peaked" at about -3.5 diopters, when I was around 12.

            Every exam since then has shown improvement, such that at age 30 my prescription was around -2.5 diopters. There's also 0.25 diopters of astigmatism, but only in one eye, and I suspect that was simply undiagnosed in my earlier tests.

            My equally nearsighted coworker reports similar experiences. My father has gotten increasingly farsighted with
          • Original parents assertion that no one he knows eyes have gotten worse .. all of my friends (in their 20s, as well as my sister) have had their eyes deteriorate terribly and seen their diagnosis go from -1 down to -7 or more. This does not occur if you need reading glasses, or if you have a stigmatism. This is for myopia (nearsightedness).

            And I am the freakish counter example. My eyes have been stedily gettign better as I wear glasses. Going from -3.9 to my current -3.1 in the last 3 years. (both my eyes ar
          • I guess since all of your friends have a particular problem then everyone in the world does. My eyesight deteriorated through my teenage years then leveled off before I was 20. My prescription stayed the same from that point for 25 years. A year ago I had custom lasik and now have 20/15 in each eye. Curiously, my prescription all those years was too strong by nearly a full power according to my lasik doctor. You would think that having that would have accelerated my so-called deteriorating vision. It di

          • Re:A crutch? (Score:5, Interesting)

            by John Whitley ( 6067 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @02:20PM (#14671771) Homepage
            The parent is definately correct. This is cutting edge .. many doctors still refuse to acknowledge this.

            There are times that any profession, physicians included, undergoes the throes of a Khunian revolution [wikipedia.org]. Consider the recent Nobel awarded to the great researchers responsible for correctly characterizing peptic ulcers as a bacterial infection [nobelprize.org]. They had to fight the established dogma that ulcers were stress-related and thereby mystic and incurable.

            Both the old myths of ulcers and the new urban legend of eyeglasses causing poor eyesight lacked one big thing: rigorous scientific proof. Are there *any* well-conducted, statistically valid, peer-reviewed studies that show (e.g.) that glasses worsen myopia? That reading glasses prevent or reverse the progress of myopia in children? This keeps coming up as an urban legend, and if there's no science backing it, doctors are right to "refuse to acknowledge it" -- because it's a load of bollocks!
        • I guess the real question is:

          If this theory is saying that myopia is caused by malconditioning of cilial muscles - why not propose a regimen of physical therapy to condition these muscles counter to what causes the condition?

          About 5 years ago, I started having severe back pain, muscle spasms, pinched sciatic, disk degeneration, the works.

          Various treatments, drugs, etc. failed to reverse the course of the problem. Until I saw a physical therapist. The therapy did not immediately work. In fact, the first t
          • But it sounds like this theory of myopia is the same; muscles get conditioned by too much near-focussing, to be in cronic spasm. Maybe excercises, like alternate focussing on near/far objects for some time could forstall the process that causes the eyeball elongation?

            Why do you think video game manuals have been recommending exactly that for the last ten years? (At least they recommend to make a pause every half to full hour, giving the eyes some rest by focusing on distant objects.)
          • Yes, this is further described in the page I linked [preventmyopia.org] (I was avoiding pasting a huge block of text).

            "Whenever close work is done without the protection of reading glasses, it is important to:

            1. Hold the work as far away as possible.
            2. Use as much light as possible in order to reduce the size of the pupil and, consequently, the accommodation.
            3. Look into the distance frequently to relax the accommodation."
        • This theory was popular 40 years ago, when I was first diagnosed with myopia. I went through an extended eye exercise regimen as well as glasses for close work, but to no avail. Eventually I started wearing glasses with the ordinary correction for myopia. My prescription remained essentially stable for 30 years (until I started wearing contact lenses, which required some tweaking).

          My understanding is that in myopia the lens is simply too far away from the retina for its accommodation range to bring the i

  • Some people lack vision (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nickname225 ( 840560 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @10:23AM (#14669550)
    FTA "Nobody has begged us to let them see a road sign two miles earlier." This kind of limited thinking is so rampant that this guy actually uttered this comment without any hesitation. The successful companies create products that enhance people's lives BEFORE they are begged. They create new technologies and then find applications.
    • Forest searcher/rescuers might appreciate binocular-vision while scanning a panorama for any signs of a lost hiker.

      Sports fans might appreciate HD-quality zoomed images from their upper-deck seats.

      No, nobody wants to see road signs two miles earlier (unless those signs warned them of traffic so they could get off at the next exit). But other applications do exist.

      • Turn in your /. - geek cred immediatly! Shame on you for not including long distance upskirts/voyuerism in your short list of applications. Everyone knows that porn is what drives all new technologies.

        • > Shame on you for not including long distance upskirts/voyuerism in your short list of applications

          Some of us don't live down holes !

        • Turn in your /. - geek cred immediatly! Shame on you for not including long distance upskirts/voyuerism in your short list of applications. Everyone knows that porn is what drives all new technologies.

          As soon as they invent long distance bukakke as well I'm in.
      • No, nobody wants to see road signs two miles earlier (unless those signs warned them of traffic so they could get off at the next exit). But other applications do exist.

        Seeing road signs far ahead might actually be a benefit - I'm sure practically everyone has had someone cut them off because they were in the wrong lane and needed to turn left/right (or better yet, turn from the middle lane. Double points for seeing someone turning in the middle lane while traffic around them could legally go straight or tu
        • The problem with seeing signs from two miles away is that while you are looking off into the distance, you are ignoring the cars around you.

          Just because the binoculars would be built into your eyes doesn't mean that you'd be able to see both the far distance and your surroundings at the same time.
          • I amde an incorrect assumption before reading the article :) THey're not like bionic eyes with binoculars built it, they just make everything ultra-sharp.

            For example, a person with better-than-20/20 vision doesn't see distant objects any larger than a person with average vision, he can just make out more details.

            To illustrate, if you have bad vision... just take off your glasses and look around. Notice the improvement you get by putting your glasses back on. Now try to imagine that you had yet another pa

  • oblig. simpsons reference (Score:5, Funny)

    by kevin.fowler ( 915964 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @10:24AM (#14669556) Homepage
    The goggles, they do nothing!

  • Will these glasses impair your 'normal' vision? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) * on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @10:25AM (#14669565)
    Software reads the scattered beam and creates a map of the patient's eye, including tiny abnormalities such as bumps, growths and valleys. The pixelated eyeglass lens is then tuned to refract light in a way that corrects for those high-level aberrations.

    This sounds like a great idea, my only concern is what happens to your vision when you take off the glasses?
    Will your vision be impaired when they are off due to the effect that the correction glasses have while they are on?
    Will they cause headaches? Hallucinations?

  • I'm wracking my mind (Score:4, Funny)

    by ianscot ( 591483 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @10:26AM (#14669569)
    An important aspect of the UI design for something like this might be the inclusion of some sort of aural cue for when the enhanced vision was activated...

    But what sound did Steve Austin's eye make, again?

  • I'll Believe it When I See it (Score:4, Interesting)

    by eno2001 ( 527078 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @10:26AM (#14669572) Homepage Journal
    Reading the article, I find it very "pie in the sky". It stands to reason that if we have the ability to produce this sort of technology, then we're really behind in so many other areas by comparison. If we can make "pixelated lenses", then why don't we have car windows that automatically darken when sunlight gets too bright? If we can determine the abberations of a person's eye in such a small form factor, then why can't a car tell when the driver is squinting and only darken the glass where the light source that is causing the squinting is coming through? If all of this stuff can be done in such a small form factor, then why don't we have a market for "winter helmets" in cold regions that users can wear to warm their faces with heated air, play digital music via a bluetooth link from the music player in their pockets, provide a heads up display with newsticker, external temperature and wind speed, and the current track playing, and track eye movements for interacting with the music player, cellphone or PDA? That sounds technically feasible and would appeal to lots of people in areas where it gets cold in the Winter. Even more to the point, why do we have windsheild wipers when it would be possible to create a grid around a windsheild that blows hot dry air or possibly a laser grid to just melt snow and ice on contact? To me, all the applications I just came up with are in the same league with what this guy proposes. And I think his idea is much more far fetched than my own.
    • To me, all the applications I just came up with are in the same league with what this guy proposes. And I think his idea is much more far fetched than my own.

      So just because you can list a bunch of things which you don't think exist but should, this guy's idea is ridiculous? That seems like a very poor argument.
    • I think this is a case of demand and supply. We certainly have the technology to darken windows when sunlight gets bright, or to warm faces in the cold, there just isn't the demand to put these into commercial production.

      Now look at the market for glasses. 20 years ago there wasn't such a thing as designer glasses and opticians (at least here in the UK) were very limited practices. Now designer glasses are all the rage and there are a huge range of opticians on the high street.

      How if people are prepared to
    • It could be cost.. to do a high strength car window might say be $30,000 USD and the same for a pair of eye glasses by size only say $300 a lens. My guess these glasses if they exist in prototype form are in the many thousands of dollar range.

      I'd hate to be driving my car w/ these when the batteries go or the computer reboots and the glasses get all funky!
    • why don't we have car windows that automatically darken when sunlight gets too bright?

      Because when the windows tint at night due to headlights, it would suck.
      • A friend of mine knew a guy up in DRC (while it was still known as Zaire) who had a Lamborghini with dimmable windows (using liquid crystal technology).
        Waaay cool. Unfortunately, he only had about 400 meters of tar road to use it on.
        Now thats frustrating. .. although maybe not quite as frustrating as it should be to all the europeans who funded his way-cool car... or would this kind of "investment" qualify as an exercise in "Capacity building" ?
    • The reason why all your ideas have not been realised is economical: It makes sense to develop a very expensive piece of technology that can help a lot of people, thereby bringing the price per treatment into an acceptable range. However, it doesn't make sense (yet) to use such complicated technologies to clean windshields because nobody is prepared to pay 200 k$ for a windshield cleaner (while a specialised ophthalmologist would certainly be prepared to pay as much for such a machine).

      This technology is c

  • Lasers on both ends... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Rigor Morty ( 149783 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @10:26AM (#14669576) Journal
    Specifically, I wanted to bring up an unrelated topic...so mod me offtopic now. I recall some years ago a presentation by a researcher where they had made a hologram of a lens, corrected by some program to delete the flaws in the glass of the original optics. It was perfectly flat, and had a decent magnification power. To that end, I wonder; is this technology the final result of that one? And, if it is, why aren't they using the converse (making better lenses out of holograms) to make optically corrected contact lenses, and replacement corneas?

    I'm just wondering...
    • Didn't something similar happen with the Hubble telescope. The original flaw caused by a chip in the testing equipment causes it to be a high resolution for that flaw, so they had to map the flaw and correct it somehow.

      Aren't alot of the newer telescopes working by correcting the flaws rather than making them bigger and more prefect?
    • Because holograms only work at one wavelength.

  • bah (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @10:27AM (#14669579)
    It'll still never help my wife see reason...

  • Lasers... (Score:5, Funny)

    by sconeu ( 64226 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @10:27AM (#14669582) Homepage Journal
    Lasers bounce off the back of the eyeball,

    WARNING: Do not look directly into laser with remaining good eye!

  • Just move your head closer. (Score:5, Funny)

    by jos3000 ( 202805 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @10:28AM (#14669591) Homepage
    Lister: Any problems?
    Kryten: Well, just one or two. In fact I've compiled a little list if you'll indulge me. Now then, uh, my optical system doesn't appear to have a zoom function.
    Lister: No, human eyes don't have a zoom.
    Kryten: Well then, how do you bring a small object into sharp focus?
    Lister: Well, you just move your head closer to the object.
    Kryten: I see. Move your head ... closer, hmm, to the object. All right, okay. Well, what about other optical effects, like split screen, slow motion, Quantel(tm)?
    Lister: No. We don't have them.
    Kryten: You don't have them -- just the zoom? Hmm. Well, no, that's fine, that's great, no, no, that's really great, that's great. Now then, my nipples don't work.

  • Really cool gun sights (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thesuperbigfrog ( 715362 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @10:29AM (#14669596)
    Imagine what a rifle scope built with this technology would do for Soldiers on the battlefield. Well-aimed fire is one of the primary factors that decides who wins in a firefight. The military would definitely profit from wide-spread use of super vision lenses.
    • The military already has this. They have scopes that can accurately fire for miles. Being able to see doesnt help other conditions -- wind, curve of the earth, shit in the way.

      Battles are fought in cities, and cities are built so that there arent large stretches between buildings. Close-combat warfare is where most people die. Increased vision wouldnt help much, unless it allowed you to see through walls and such.

      • In the US Army's sniper school (Score:5, Interesting)

        by blueZ3 ( 744446 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @11:39AM (#14670173) Homepage
        they teach you a bit about the mechanics of shooting (zeroing the rifle, holding steady, leading a moving target, estimating bullet drop, etc.) but a lot of what you learn is how to gauge distance and wind. There are a number of ways to gauge each (in the desert, the wind affects the "heat shimmers" you see in the air; in open field terrain, grass etc. moves in the breeze). This is the most difficult part of shooting well at extreme distances, because across long distances the wind may differ between the shooter and target.

        The Army's standard-issue sniper rifles aren't the .50 caliber jobs you need for really long-range shooting, anyway. The classes were intense and very interesting in an abstract fashion. Fortunately, I was never called on to put any of this knowledge to practical applciation.

        And as the parent says, close combat in cities (MOUT--Military Operations in Urban Terrain) moots most extreme long distance shooting. There's just too much maneuver for a sniper to be effective from a fixed postion with a long view.

  • Will they ever be wearable? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Obvius ( 779709 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @10:31AM (#14669614)
    I can imagine some serious eyestrain coming about if your eye has different ideas to the 'smart lens' about what is supposed to be in focus. The fovea (small area of retina that receives the focussed image) is pretty small. You try to focus on a roadsign 400metres away - the super lenses think you're looking at a tree 500metres away. Hellish biofeedback loop ensues. It's giving me a headache just to think about it...
  • Pixel = pix[sic]ture element

    That is, although a pixel can be a phosphor, LED, or dot of paint, it's a tiny component that makes up an image. What we're talking about here is an array of fine-controllable lens elements. While a lens may manipulate the perception of an image, it does not constitute a piece of it. Seems a little silly to be naming the company over an utterly misused term.

    Lexels, anyone?
  • Is this another scientific application that will take years to produce before the rest of us can afford it? probably. Much less have some level of style where we weren't embarrased to wear them in public? I think so.

    Ok, so I am a little skeptical... the computers and sensors they plan to attach to the glasses will be cumbersome, and the piece about "dynamic adjustments" sounds a little far fetched. And where do the batteries go??

    You might as well add a zoom and x-ray vision to the product suite.

    I think

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @10:39AM (#14669669)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I remember reading about two professors at (I believe) UCLA who were working on this, and had supposedly made a deal with Bausch and Lomb. At least, that was on the measurement-of-the-eye bit and the deformable mirror array.

    I was wondering what all had come of that.

    Truly amazing that these things take as long as they do to get going anywhere. Is a cure for cancer languishing in some lab?

  • Beer Googles (Score:5, Funny)

    by a803redman ( 870583 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @10:59AM (#14669805) Homepage
    Can they make the girl look the the same in the morning as she did in the club last night? Please tell me I'm not the only one with that issue...
  • ...working prototype within a year that is built to military specifications...

    How about a prototype that is built to just commercial specifications?

  • I've stared a computer screen since I was too young to walk, yet I have 20/15 vision according to the last eye test I had done. Somehow this still interests me... I would dig having 20/10 or 20/5 vision... I wonder if they would consider making special lenses for people who have good vision already, but would still like to improve it?
    • Hell, why not 20/0 then? Why limit yourself? Ever seen a 20/5 line on a test chart?

      Once presbyopia sets in you'll wonder why you ever even thought of such things. Your eyesight is already perfect. Why would you think that your life would be enhanced in any way by making it marginally better? Ask someone who requires correction if the difference between 20/20 and 20/15 even matters. It doesn't. You should be thankful that you don't have to mess with glasses, contacts or lasik.
    • 20/10 is the theoretical focusing limit of a normally sized human eye. That's the diffraction limit, where the light that diffracts through your pupil (this diffraction is the change of the light from the theoretical beam into a cone) prevents further improvements in perceived resolution.

      Doctors tend to talk about 20/15, 20/12.5 (or just 20/12) and 20/10. 20/5 just isn't going to happen to your bare eye (your eye without magnifying optics).

      Regards,
      Ross

  • Rubbish (Score:5, Insightful)

    by slavemowgli ( 585321 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @11:08AM (#14669895) Homepage
    I think (some) people are getting a bit too excited about this without considering the downsides. It's already possible to give people much-greater-than-average vision using laser eye surgery, and has been for a while, but it's not usually done, simply because those it was found out that when your vision is *too* good, it'll start to irritate you after a while - you'll get headaches, dizzy spells etc.

    So... superhuman vision might be useful on occasion, for short periods of time, but if you think that we're all gonna wear contacts that will literally give us a hawk's vision in 20 years, think again. It won't happen.
    • No, actually, the reason people don't correct their vision to better than about 20/15 is that the surgery itself introduces aberrations at that level. The diffraction limit is about 20/10, so 20/15 with surgery is pretty good. Most high-order LASIK patients come out of the surgery with that level of vision. (that means "more than 50% of...", not "if you get the surgery you will...")

  • Lasik can already give you 20/10 vision (Score:3, Informative)

    by PaulModz ( 942002 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @11:15AM (#14669957)
    If your sight is 20/40 or better, you can already get enhanced vision as high as 20/10 or 20/15 with Lasik. Some doctors even specialize in vision enhancement for professional athletes. Many golfers and baseball players (most notably Tiger Woods) have had their vision enhanced, with real results.

    So why is Lasik ok while Steroids aren't (there's little or no medical evidence supporting the idea that steroids are harmful when used properly).

    Here's an article that ran on Slate during the congressional hearings on steroid use - http://www.slate.com/id/2116858/ [slate.com] Buckle up, sports fans, there are all kinds of elective surgeries in the works to improve human performance. I guess as long as you don't inject yourself, anything goes!

  • Not a good solution without active control (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dr. Zowie ( 109983 ) <slashdot.deforest@org> on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @11:26AM (#14670065)
    Using wavefront sensors to fully characterize your eye is not new. LASIK patients get that treatment now -- you look into an autocollimator that includes a Shack-Hartmann sensor, and it reads out all the high-order aberrations in your eye. The LASIK treatment then gets rid of all those aberrations, so that after correction your eye could in principle be "perfect" -- limited only by quantum uncertainty of the photons entering your pupil.[In practice that's not the case, because the act of cutting your cornea and letting it heal introduces a low level of new aberrations that weren't present when your eye was characterized in the first place].

    If wavefront sensing is so easy and painless, why don't we all have super-duper glasses to fix our vision? Historically, it's because high order lenses are hard to grind, but more recently it's because your glasses can't be aligned with your eye very well. You could make high-order corrective glasses out of the usual glass or polycarbonate or whatever, but they would only work if you looked straight through them: if you turned your eyes to look sideways, the corrective aberrations in the lenses would no longer line up with the aberrations in your cornea, and your vision would be worse than with conventional glasses. If you have astigmatism you can get that effect now by turning your glasses 90 degrees as you look through them: at 90 degree rotation, the cylindrical correction actually worsens your astigmatism rather than correcting it. high order terms are more sensitive to angular and positional alignment.

    Contact lenses are better since they are attached to your cornea and therefore stay approximately aligned -- but they're not affixed to your eye, they sort of drift around in there. That's one reason that astigmatic contacts (a relatively new product, BTW) are only available in 10 degree increments of correction angle -- they don't line up any better than that. The only thing that stays really fixed relative to your cornea is, well, your cornea -- which is why high-order correction is feasible for LASIK.

    So to make your super-duper glasses work right you would have to mount a small camera under the frame, pointed back at your eye. The camera would have to back out the motion of the eye and correct the active pixels in the lens as you looked around. That may be what these guys are doing, but TFM didn't mention it. Without that sort of feedback, high order correction isn't likely to work well.

    BTW, wavefront sensors appear like magic to lots of folks but they aren't. Those eye autofocusers at the optometrist work by autocollimation: if your eye is perfectly focused, then a beam coming in should be focused to a single point on the retina, and scattered light from the retina should then be refocused into a beam that goes straight back where it came from. The autocollimator adjusts an external lens assembly until the beam coming back out of your eye is nice and clean. Wavefront sensors use a bug-eye lens to produce (say) 25 little images, each of which records the beam coming out of a small patch of your pupil. If the eye is in focus, then all the little images should line up. If it's not, then they are misaligned. It's that simple.
  • Note: "supervision" is already a word, and it is not the same as "super vision".
  • I'd love to have a pair of resolution-sharpening glasses for doing artwork. There are lots of times when it would be helpful to see what was going on in detail without having to get so close to the canvas that I can't see the whole picture anymore.
  • based on my failed adaptation to progressive lenses. (Guess I am not going to get rich inventing adaptive eyeglasses now!).

    For those who can tolerate progressives, I salute you. It didn't sound too bad when they were describing how they would be, but I wore them for a week before giving up and asking for a single vision prescription and a reading prescription separately.

    All during that week, I thought of alternatives, and naturally (this is /.) I thought that some sort of adaptive lenses would be the cool w
  • I'm waiting for the version with an integrated 2 MP camera. That way everyone can take pictures without anyone else knowing and it won't be limited just to those people who can cleverly conceal their cell phones.

    Aren't you guys looking forward to browsing a forum and seeing thousands more bad pictures of random moderately attractive women doing everyday things? I know I am.

  • Wired just gets worse and worse. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by GigG ( 887839 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @12:28PM (#14670637)
    There was a time when Wired was a OK place to get tech news. That time is ended.

    To quote the first graph of the TFA. "... About twice a year, he would encounter a patient whose eyesight was better than 20/20. Such cases of super vision were a phenomenon that Blum and the science of opthalmology couldn't explain."

    We all know that 20/20 means the test subject can see at 20 ft what a person of normal vision can see at 20 feet. We also know there are a lot of people who can't see as well as a person with normal vision. Is it so much of a strech of the imagination that there will be some people who do see better than normal to call it super vision?

  • Super Vision? (Score:2, Funny)

    by nytes ( 231372 )
    If I had any supervision I wouldn't be posting on /.
  • I'm curious as to whether or not having a real-time correction brings any real improvement in vision correction. Are cornea aberrations a realtime problem? If not, is a pixelated lens superior to an high-precision lens of some stable material?

    I know that the advantage Othonix glasses offer is that they use adaptive optics (a laser and wavefront sensor) to identify a prescription for your vision that is much more accurate than the techniques currently in use at most optometrists. This allows more precise

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