GlassesOff app promises to improve failing vision

by Steven Mostyn - Oct 3 2011, 08:22

Here’s one you should perhaps read with an air of hopeful enthusiasm while cocking an eyebrow and scratching your chin: There’s a new iPhone app in development that turns the brain into a pair of glasses and can apparently stave off failing eyesight. Hmm.

According to Israeli company Ucansi, which has created the aptly named GlassesOff application, its software trains the brain by forcing it to make blurred images clear, which, in turn, compensates against deterioration where close-up focusing is concerned.

“We’re using the brain as glasses,” enthused Ucansi co-founder Uri Polat,” in a New Scientist report. “Every single change is in the brain.”

“The software is unlikely to do away with glasses,” he added. “It may, however, reduce the amount of time people need to wear them.”

The app starts by displaying a simple white circle against a grey background, followed by a quick succession of white circles at various places on the screen—some of these circles are blank, while others contain blurred lines known as ‘Gabor patches’.

The user is tasked to correctly identify whenever a circle containing Gabor patches appears in the same position as the very first circle—a challenge that grows increasingly difficult as the image placement becomes gradually faster and harder to follow.

According to initial tests carried out at the University of Berkley, users with an average age of 51 were able to lower their ‘eye age’ to 41.9 after tracking and isolating GlassesOff’s blurry lines a total of just 40 times. They were also able to read two-lines further down an eye chart when viewed at close distance.

And, when putting their improved close-up vision into practice, said users were able to read a page of The New York Times in an average time of 5.3 minutes, which is a dramatic change compared to the 12 minutes recorded prior to working with GlassesOff.

GlassesOff is expected to arrive on the Apple App Store in early 2012 attached to a 60GBP price tag (approx. $90 USD), which will cover an initial three-month training period. An as-yet undisclosed monthly top-up fee will follow in order to help users maintain their improved vision.

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