Myopia Correcting 'Smart Glasses' From Japan To Be Sold in Asia (nikkei.com) 66
Can a pair of unique spectacles banish nearsightedness without surgical intervention? Japan's Kubota Pharmaceutical Holdings says its wearable device can do just that, and it plans to start releasing the product in Asia, where many people grapple with myopia. From a report: The device, which the company calls Kubota Glasses or smart glasses, is still being tested. It projects an image from the lens of the unit onto the wearer's retina to correct the refractive error that causes nearsightedness. Wearing the device 60 to 90 minutes a day corrects myopia according to the Japanese company.
Kubota Pharmaceutical has not disclosed additional details on how the device works. Through further clinical trials, it is trying to determine how long the effect lasts after the user wears the device, and how many days in total the user must wear the device to achieve a permanent correction for nearsightedness. Myopia is often results from the cornea and the retina in the eye being too far apart. This inhibits the proper focusing of light as it enters the eye and causes distant objects to look blurry. Asian are prone to nearsightedness. Of people aged 20 and under, 96% of South Koreans, 95% of Japanese, 87% of Hong Kongers, 85% of Taiwanese and 82% of Singaporeans are affected by the condition, according to Kubota.
Kubota Pharmaceutical has not disclosed additional details on how the device works. Through further clinical trials, it is trying to determine how long the effect lasts after the user wears the device, and how many days in total the user must wear the device to achieve a permanent correction for nearsightedness. Myopia is often results from the cornea and the retina in the eye being too far apart. This inhibits the proper focusing of light as it enters the eye and causes distant objects to look blurry. Asian are prone to nearsightedness. Of people aged 20 and under, 96% of South Koreans, 95% of Japanese, 87% of Hong Kongers, 85% of Taiwanese and 82% of Singaporeans are affected by the condition, according to Kubota.
Topic Correction Also (Score:2)
consider.
do these lenses work on varying the product advertising and posted articles of the various social media sites
older adults (Score:2)
A solution for kids under 20 is great. Solutions for presbyopia would be great too.
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BUT...if they worked, hell, I could wear them a bit maybe early morning or late night when no one is looking....since it says you don't have to wear them all the time.
But, I"m skeptical how wearing special glasses can help a physical eye defect....?
Re:older adults (Score:4, Interesting)
But, I"m skeptical how wearing special glasses can help a physical eye defect....?
Your eyes use muscles to focus and change the shape of the eyeball. These glasses give them a workout.
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Which is why it is suggested you should stop looking at your monitor and focus on distant objects for several minutes (10 - 15?) each hour. It forces your eye muscles to focus back and forth.
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The suggested mechanism for myopia is that the lens changes shape from focusing the lens to create near sight.
If you are looking at a distant object, the eye can do the opposite.
If this device is based on that theory, then what it will try to do is to add somewhere between +0,5 to +2 to your current prescription when you are trying to read text, which means you are forced to use far focus instead of near focus, assuming the user is taught that you are suppose to keep everything at a normal reading distance.
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Yeah, except the idea is about 150 years old, and has never been shown to work with eyesight. It's on a par with the idea that eating Graham crackers will eliminate your interest in sex. Smells like good old-fashioned quackery, now with "quantum".
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> It's on a par with the idea that eating Graham crackers will eliminate your interest in sex.
I think it's working...
Re: older adults (Score:3)
Complete horseshit. That's the so-called 'Bates Method'. It is nothing but quackery, albeit quackery that has taken in a lot of famous people (Aldous Huxley comes to mind.)
If that's how these glasses work, somebody has been conned.
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One in each eye, that makes a plural.
I'm happy with a 16-hour effect (Score:4, Insightful)
Tell me to wear the smart glasses an hour every morning, when I wake up and eat breakfast, and then I can take them off for the remainder of my day. That'd already be swell enough.
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Same here. Although I am not really hopeful for us older folks...
Too much screen time (Score:2)
Nobody looks away, even to avoid the oncoming train.
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Oops, sorry.. Just saying why there's so much mypoia
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According to a decades old study is due to children eating too much white bread when they're under 5. It was in New Scientist magazine at the time.
"Myopia is often results" (Score:2)
Editors, EDIT FFS !
Or, as you can't be bothered to do this one, maybe get another job ?
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This is slashdot. Editors here are merely responsible for pressing the publish button for slashvertisements and articles that stroke their personal fancy.
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Agreed. It's become a political wankfest too.
Worthless without more info (Score:3)
Re:Worthless without more info (Score:5, Informative)
Whole lot of not enough info.
A bit more detail from the company website: https://www.kubotaholdings.co.... [kubotaholdings.co.jp]
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What would be really interesting, and isn't in the press release, is an indication of the upper limits of effectiveness. I'm guessing that these will help people with myopia up to -1 diopter or so, but I would be astonished if they help people with -5 diopter glasses.
Odd (Score:2)
I don't understand why a Japanese company, which is planning to sell devices in Asia, would test on 25 people in the US.
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They probably needed to go to a 3rd world country to be allowed to test this ;-)
In all seriousness though, Japan has very strict laws for personal injury. Maybe that was the factor.
Seems plausible (Score:5, Interesting)
Back around the time when I was in high school, my nearsighted father was completely obsessed with the idea of correcting his vision without glasses. To make a long story short, several of the techniques he tried worked. More than once, he got himself checked out by an optometrist, and was found to have perfect 20/20 vision. The effect never lasted long, however. He had to do his funky eye massage and eye exercise dance regularly to maintain the effect. So when I read about these new glasses, I'm thinking they probably do something similar.
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when I read about these new glasses, I'm thinking they probably do something similar.
Which is good! You can wear them an hour a day when nobody is looking.
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Yeah, I went to a seminar that talked about those eye exercises. Whenever I did them, my eyes felt better. Although I never had my visual acuity measured very accurately, I'm pretty sure I got close to single cone resolution when comparing abilities side-by-side with my friends. But decades have passed, and my ability to accommodate is shot (something to look forward to, you young whippersnappers!). There's no down side to doing the exercises -- they take little time and don't hurt in the least -- so ma
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I never specified when "back in high school" was. Long enough ago that my ability to accommodate is also shot. I guess presbyopia is the great equalizer. No matter what your eyes are like in your youth, you're getting presbyopia.
If it weren't for that, I'd be a lot more interested in the Japanese glasses. They probably work, and it's a cool concept.
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Due to my myopia I misread this as an irrational fear of presbyterians.
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This is quite similar to an EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) exercise. I was talking with my downstairs neighbor who works with autistic kids; we got to talking about ADD (it's on the spectrum and perhaps benefits from this too), OCD, PTSD.... she said there does seem to be some link with the eyes and information processing in this regard. Apparently it can help with the information moving from one hemisphere of the brain to the other??
Seems to me that perhaps exercises like this could
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Sorry, age has a lot to do with presbyopia, and the science is well-established. With age, the lens slowly thickens and stiffens, making it mechanically less pliable. Eventually, it becomes too thick to be modulated by the ciliary muscles. (Just wait until you hit your 50s and 60s, Mr. Snark.) As with nearly everything about the body, exercise helps, here by strengthening the ciliary muscles, but you can't currently undo the lens thickening without replacement with an IOL (intraocular lens). To the bes
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Link to PR release (Score:5, Informative)
As the OP link is behind a paywall, I looked up the PR release that the article was likely generated from:
https://www.kubotaholdings.co.... [kubotaholdings.co.jp]
The release claim the device corrects myopia by projecting a peripheral image that stimulates the eye to develop in a way to impede myopia development, while allowing central vision to be maintained in focus.
This "works" by the placebo effect... (Score:3, Insightful)
said no company about its products ever.
Maybe this *does* work, but there's a long, long history of sight correction quackery. I'll believe it when a systemic review in a medical journal confirms it.
Kubota began clinical trials on the device last July after confirming the therapeutic effect of the mechanism using a desktop system.
In other words, they convinced *themselves* this thing works and now they're trying to prove it in a way that would convince other people. I wish them luck, but I'm not holding my breath.
Re:This "works" by the placebo effect... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This "works" by the placebo effect... (Score:4, Informative)
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Nonetheless, myths and quacks on eyesight improvement thrive. That's why the gold standard in science is a *blinded* placebo controlled study. Even those usually don't get replicated.
Understand I'm not saying the company is dishonest. I'm saying they're not *objective*.
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I don't think it's as clear-cut as you say. It's not a question of being able to see or not see: it's a question of how finely you can resolve detail. Optometrists do this with A/B testing ("Is it better like this? Or like that? Like this? Or like that?") and while the differences are initially obvious they get to the point of being subjective. If we're talking a quarter-diopter improvement at the cutoff point where they'll prescribe glasses or not, it's probably not completely objective.
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said no company about its products ever.
Maybe this *does* work, but there's a long, long history of sight correction quackery. I'll believe it when a systemic review in a medical journal confirms it.
Kubota began clinical trials on the device last July after confirming the therapeutic effect of the mechanism using a desktop system.
In other words, they convinced *themselves* this thing works and now they're trying to prove it in a way that would convince other people. I wish them luck, but I'm not holding my breath.
Computer simulation before clinical trials is pretty much the norm these days, as is announcing positive results from the computer simulations before starting clinical trials. Successful simulations translate to successful trials a significant amount of the time.
And there is a good body of past medical practice to support vision correction by muscular training. The obvious example: some of us are old enough to remember eye-patches covering the good eye to encourage the "lazy"eye to correct. Since overtaken
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Whaddya mean, correction? (Score:5, Insightful)
My old school lenses "correct" my myopia. From the description, these apparently claim to cure it. Big difference.
Racists (Score:2)
Asian are prone to nearsightedness
racists!!!
Re: Racists (Score:2, Interesting)
Somebody: Asians usually live in Asia.
You, a moron: Racists!!!
Fun fact: You implying asians are a "race" is literally the definition of being a racist. (Definition, everywhere where education less outdated than a 100 years is available: Somebody who believes there is such a thing as races.)
But hey, you also automatically imply hate, for whatever reason. So you're a fuckin prejudiced cunt too! Congatulations!
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They could have said "continentist", but then nobody would know WTF they are talking about. The goals of being accurate and being understood without TLDR complaints are sometimes at odds.
It corrects myopia? Great! (Score:3)
Let's send them to all our politicians.
Not only that (Score:2)
but you can also see though women's clothes with these, for only $999.99.
In other news (Score:2, Informative)
This works, kinda (Score:2)
There are Trainings, Regimes and stuff to achieve this. Always have.
Just like, for example you can't handle the weight of your bike, so you go to the gym and train for 2 hours every day 7/7 and then you can handle your bike like nothing for the 2 mile trip to and from your job. It works, but will you do it?
This is the same thing, train your eyes for hours each day and from time to time, you'll be able to watch the next Tiger King stream from the second row.
Orthokeratology (Score:1)
There are a few places offering orthokeratology, contact lenses that reshape the cornea to correct vision. The claim is that it works but the effects are temporary: After a few days, eyes relax back into the old defect and the contacts have to be used periodically to maintain good vision. This is not what Kubota is doing.
It looks like Kubota is trying to force the eye away from myopia, by projecting an image that is effectively too far away to focus on. Eye muscles will strain to focus the image, strengthen
Another solution (Score:2)
How about we break up the oligopolies that have made correctional eyeglasses so damned expensive so that we don't need eGlasses as much.
Confusing headline. (Score:2)
The headline makes one think "How is this any different deom regular glasses??"
[Apparently these are supposed to actually reshape the eye, and keep it fixed, even aftr usage. Which makes sense if you know how the body shapes itself. E.g. the soft shaping the hard, in the long run, and not vice versa.]
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why does it (Score:2)
why does this remind me of Steve Martin's movie "The Jerk." Remember the Opti-Grab
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Can we give these to Congress? (Score:2)
I say we start a GoFundMe page to buy a set for every member of Congress.
There is "better eyesight without glasses" book (Score:1)
There is "better eyesight without glasses" book by William Bates.
Even though his theories are arguable, even his opponents agree that exercises that he describes have positive effect.
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