Coming soon: iPhone app to help improve your vision
(CBS) - It's no secret - as we age, our visions deteriorate. Over time, our eyes tend to lose focusing power on nearby things. I know, I'm affected - I'm farsighted.
I've always been told that my poor eyesight is unavoidable and unfixable. But today, there's hope thanks to an iPhone app developed by Ucansi. It's called GlassesOff, and it "can help you achieve over 80 percent improvement in vision acuity," according to the company's site.
GlassesOff is set to launch early next year on the iPhone, which can help older people (and perhaps farsighted folks like me) shed my reading glasses for at least part of the time and others to carry on reading without optical aids longer than typical, reports New Scientist.
"As we get older, the lenses in our eyes become less elastic, and so can't readily be adjusted to focus on nearby objects. Known as presbyopia, the condition is almost ubiquitous among people in their early fifties and older. In addition to the obvious reading problems, symptoms include tired eyes and headaches," explains New Scientist. "The app helps people compensate for deterioration in their eyes' ability to focus on nearby objects by training the brain to process the resulting blurred images."
Uri Polat of Tel Aviv University in Israel and co-founder of Ucansi developed software that trains users to detect patterns (blurry lines created by varying a gray background) and adapt to them. The training will eventually help users become better at the task, resulting in vision improvements.
Sounds impressive indeed, but the app will cost you. It's expected to set subscribers back $95 to start, which will cover an initial training session of three months where users will train 15 minutes, three times per week. Then, there will be a monthly fee to maintain the improvements.
Interested? Sign up at GlassesOff.com to be notified when the app launches.
You can also read more about Ucansi's GlassesOff app at New Scientist.
