philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Prototype Display Lets You Say Goodbye to Reading Glasses

Researchers are developing technology that can adjust an image on a display so you can see it clearly without corrective lenses.

The technology uses algorithms to alter an image based on a person’s glasses prescription together with a light filter set in front of the display. The algorithm alters the light from each individual pixel so that, when fed through a tiny hole in the plastic filter, rays of light reach the retina in a way that re-creates a sharp image. Researchers say the idea is to anticipate how your eyes will naturally distort whatever’s onscreen—something glasses or contacts typically correct—and adjust it beforehand so that what you see appears clear.

In addition to making it easier for people with simple vision problems to use all kinds of displays without glasses, the technique may help those with more serious vision problems caused by physical defects that can’t be corrected with glasses or contacts, researchers say. This includes spherical aberration, which causes different parts of the lens to refract light differently.

Ramesh Raskar, an associate professor at the MIT Media Lab who coauthored the paper, says that if researchers used a display with a high enough resolution—about double the 326 pixels per inch of the iPod Touch used in the paper—the technology could be made to be used by more than one person at once.

See the full story here: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/529191/prototype-display-lets-you-say-goodbye-to-reading-glasses/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20140731