It's no secret that as we age, our vision deteriorates. Over time, our eyes tend to lose their ability to focus on nearby objects.
An iPhone app called GlassesOff promises to "help you achieve over 80 percent improvement in vision acuity" by training your brain to more efficiently process the blurred images that result from near-vision deterioration.
GlassesOff is set to launch early next year on the iPhone. The company that makes it, Ucansi, says the app can help older people (and perhaps younger farsighted folks like me) shed their reading glasses at least part of the time, and let others read without optical aids for longer than usual, reports New Scientist.
"As people age, the lens loses its focusing power, resulting in near-vision deterioration. Unable to focus the way we used to, images sent to be processed in the brains' visual cortex are unfocused and processing is slow and very difficult, resulting in a blurred image," as well as tired eyes and headaches, Ucansi says.
Uri Polat of Tel Aviv University, also a co-founder of Ucansi, developed software that trains users to detect patterns called Gabor patches (blurry lines created by varying a gray background) and adapt to them. The training purportedly helps users become better at the task, resulting in vision improvements.
Over the last three years, the treatment was tested on more than 100 patients suffering from presbyopia, and the volunteers reportedly were able to read more than two lines further down an optical chart after their training. The research was presented last month at a meeting of the Entertainment Software and Cognitive Neurotherapeutics Society in San Francisco.
The app sounds impressive, 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 during which users will train 15 minutes, three times per week. Then, there will be a monthly fee to maintain improvements.