Deteriorating eyesight, which leads to the use of reading glasses, is a natural part of the aging process. But a new iPhone application developed by researchers at Tel Aviv University could keep your vision sharp for years longer, beyond the age where glasses are usually needed.
The application is called "GlassesOff." According to Prof. Uri Polat from TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the co-founder of Ucansi, the company that designed the software, the application is designed to "use the brain itself as glasses." Prof. Polat's team described the technology at the meeting of the Entertainment Software and Cognitive Neurotherapeutics Society in San Francisco.
When we reach middle age, the lenses in our eyes become less supple, making it more difficult to focus on objects that are close to us — which necessitates the use of reading glasses. The application trains the brain to translate blurry images into clear ones. In the application, groups of blurry lines called Gabor patches appear at several points across the screen, and the user must identify when one appears in the center. In trials, users with an average age of 51 were able to read two lines lower on an eye-test chart after 40 uses of the application.
For the full story on TAU's "GlassesOff" app, which will be launched on the iPhone next year, see the New Scientist story which ran on October 8:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128324.400-improve-your-vision-with-an-app.html
American Friends of Tel Aviv University (www.aftau.org) supports Israel's leading, most comprehensive and most sought-after center of higher learning. Independently ranked 94th among the world's top universities for the impact of its research, TAU's innovations and discoveries are cited more often by the global scientific community than all but 10 other universities.
Internationally recognized for the scope and groundbreaking nature of its research and scholarship, Tel Aviv University consistently produces work with profound implications for the future.