Digital printing is now available for the first time directly on the Ronor’s MC Quad bottle, offering unprecedented quality for both the printed image and the overall product. “Our devoted R&D team is constantly looking for new products and technologiesthat could be offered in a format to benefit our ECPs,” says Jenny Tzelardonis, communications director and brand manager.

The MC Quad is first in the Ronor Multi Clean range to offer digital printing, the large, flat surface lending itself well to being printed in this way. The possibilities are unlimited, as any high-quality image can be printed successfully. Ronor’s design team has put together a carefully selected image bank, which provides a more ready-to-go option as well.

“We have some very creative customers and have seen some really amazing artwork during the years, which is also what inspires us to continually expand our printing possibilities, “says Tzelardonis.

Oakley Canada announced the release of PrizmTM, a revolutionary lens technology that dramatically enhances contrast and visibility over a wide range of light conditions.

The groundbreaking technology improves the eye’s ability to perceive detail in the snow, such as contours and texture, improving visibility so one can see clearly and ski or ride with more confidence.

“If there’s a product out there that can better your performance and technology that legitimately helps you, you need to have it. Prizm is solid for any kind of light. It’s at the forefront of what lens technology has to offer,” said slopestyle Olympic medalist Mark McMorris.

Prizm also works over a much wider range of light conditions than a traditional snow lens, so there is no need to switch lenses as conditions vary through the day.

The human eye is extremely sensitive to detail in certain colours, but that detail is lost in flat, low contrast white snow. Like an equalizer would boost treble or bass to enhance sound, Prizm lenses boost the sensitive colours and filter the rest, leaving vision with crisp detail that is not washed out by the flat light.

“This new technology takes the same approach as noise-cancelling headphones. It tunes down the irrelevant colours and lets you focus completely on the colours that are most important to your sport,” said Ryan Saylor, Oakley’s director of advanced product development. “This means that you won’t be distracted by background colours, and you can see all the contours and textures of the snow more clearly. You really won’t see snow the same way again.”

Prizm lens technology is on sale in the 2014 Oakley Snow Goggle Collection and is available in

three different lens options: black iridium, jade iridium and rose, giving consumers the perfect lens for any light condition.

The new Snow Goggles for the slopes from Götti Switzerland now feature a three-dimensional finish providing it an even more dynamic look. Besides their technical features, they impress with their Götti-tested style factor, both on and off the slopes, of course.

The latest model is equipped with an anti-fog system with double glazing and optimum ventilation. Even under heavy loads, the new Snow Goggles’ light and durable structure stays in shape and comes in three different colours. They sit comfortably when combined with a helmet and offer perfect UV protection.

By Brian P. Dunleavy

The end of the year is always a good time to make plans, set goals and think about the future.

In this installment of Lens Focus, we’re going to look at where new technology is taking the science of spectacle lens design. If you thought freeform technology revolutionized how your clients see, just check out how these new innovations have taken lenses to the next level.

Watch out, Google. By now, everyone has heard about Google Glass – as well as the product’s promises and pitfalls. Now Sony is entering the rapidly burgeoning “smartglass” market with its new Smart EyeGlass. In essence, the specs act as a secondary screen for an Android-based smartphone, displaying information in the lenses of the wearer, using a tiny projector and hologram system. According to the company, the glasses have a camera mounted in the left-hand lens and use an accelerometer, gyroscope and compass to track the wearer’s movements, overlaying information to create augmented reality. They connect to a smartphone via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, allowing Android apps to operate through the glasses. Sony plans to launch developer kit versions of the Smart EyeGlass within a year.

Space, the final frontier. Speaking of augmented reality in eyeglasses, Space Glasses also claim to improve on the technology of “smart” eyewear with, its manufacturers claim, 15 times the viewing area of Google Glass. Space Glasses also include audio speakers that add virtual sounds to the user experience, as well as microphones that capture and interpret the user’s spoken commands, using speech recognition technology to respond to requests for desired information and actions. Inventor Dr. Steve Mann has been developing augmented reality systems since the 1980s, through his work at the University of Toronto. In essence, his eyeglass-based technology takes real-world human sensory inputs and enhances them with digital data obtained from the Internet. Dr. Mann is now working as the chief scientist and product developer with Meta Company, which is marketing Space Glasses.

Like the products from Sony and Google, Space Glasses can support prescription lenses, and all three companies plan to work with eyecare providers (optometrists and opticians) in the delivery of their prescription versions.

Then again, who needs glasses? An important market segment for ECPs – computer users – may no longer need eye care services or the premium lens products designed to meet their unique vision needs. Brian Barsky, OD, a professor of computer science and vision science (and affiliate professor of optometry) at the University of California-Berkeley, and researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed computer hardware and software improvements designed to achieve increased image resolution and contrast. In one of their projects, they modified an iPod touchscreen by adding a standard light field display consisting of a film with tiny pinholes sandwiched between thin layers of plastic. The team also developed computer algorithms to adjust the light intensity from each pinhole. With this technology, they can use a person’s eyeglass prescription to compute an altered image customized for that individual. Their findings were published recently in the journal ACM Transactions on Graphics.

Lens, heal thyself. Historically, eyeglass wearers – particularly those with lenses made from certain materials and/or treated with certain coatings – experienced issues with durability. Although newer lens products are less problematic in this regard, there is room for improvement. Enter Essilor. They have filed an application with the U.S. patent office for a lens treatment that effectively self-repairs when scratched. Essilor would not comment on the patent application – except to confirm its existence – as the product is still in development.

The products mentioned above may not come up in your client consultations next month or even next year. But they’re definitely worth keeping an eye on for the future.

Diane von Furstenberg and Google joined forces to launch the DVF | Made for Glass collection, a collaboration that melds the boldness and creativity of Glass Explorers with the confidence and independence of the DVF woman. The two brands first collaborated on a short film “DVF Through Glass” which provided an insider’s view of Diane von Furstenberg’s Spring 2013 runway show.

The limited edition collection of frames and shades is a watershed moment as technology meets fashion. Glass is smart eyewear with a tiny screen above the right eye that can connect wirelessly to the Internet, providing the wearer with access to information when he needs it without it getting in the way.

The development of the DVF | Made for Glass collection also involves a close partnership between DVF and Marchon Eyewear, the brand’s longtime licensing partner.

“Diane von Furstenberg is a visionary in the world of fashion and design,” said Claudio Gottardi, president and CEO of Marchon, a VSP Global company. “It was a natural fit to combine her innovative spirit with our own to produce this groundbreaking collection that is the first to unite the leaders in fashion, technology and optical. DVF | Made for Glass is poised to take wearable technology to the next level in high fashion.”

The full collection is sold on www.google.com/glass/start, and as exclusive packages on Net-A-Porter.com. Net-A-Porter is the first third-party retailer for Glass alongside MrPorter.com.

Essilor Instruments International has just introduced NeKsia, a new edging solution that addresses eyecare professionals’ on-going need for efficiency, quality, and ease of use.

Replacing the most widely used benchmark 3D edging systems of all time, the Kappa level edgers, NeKsia offers a truly next-generation solution, designed to achieve high performance, while incorporating one of the most user-friendly and productive processes in the world.

Rounding out the full range of Essilor’s system offerings, the new NeKsia combines high-precision edging and speed, along with modern, sought-after features such as extended tracing capabilities, accurate lens centering regardless of the lens power, touch screen technology, enhanced MMI, and powerful, optimized automatic and customizable edging cycles.

Ideal for busy eyecare professionals looking for workflow optimization, this winning formula can keep up with the most demanding productivity and quality needs.

By Paddy Kamen

GlassesOff¹ is well named for it does just that, allowing most people between 40 and 60 to leave their reading glasses behind, for many years!

Exciting new technology from an international team of neuroscientists improves vision by leaving the eyes alone, and instead stimulating the brain’s visual cortex. The game-like training is delivered via a smart phone application (for iOS and Android devices), available for approximately $15 a month. The program involves training for three, 12-minute sessions per week over approximately three months. Users are expected to be able to read without glasses or magnifiers after 10-15 hours of training.

Nature’s Scientific Reports published the results of a study² conducted at the University of California, Berkley that showed the aging brain can overcome, or at least delay the effects of age-related deterioration of the eyes. In some cases, subjects over age 50 who had presbyopia showed improvements comparable to the vision in the younger, control group.

Without correction:

All users became able to read a font smaller than the standard newspaper size

90 per cent of subjects regained the ability to read for longer periods without adverse effects such as headache

The reading speed of small, font-size text improved considerably

Eye age was reduced by 8.6 years.

The study was the first to conclusively prove that improvements associated with this training originate in the brain and are not the result of improved performance of the eye as might be seen in accommodation, pupil size changes or depth of perception.

Prof. Uri Polat is the co-founder and chief scientific officer of GlassesOff. He is also the director of the Visual and Clinical Neuroscience Laboratory at the Eye Research Institute of the Sheba Medical Center, Faculty of Medicine at Tel-Aviv University. In an interview with Envision: seeing beyond magazine, Professor Polat explained that there is still some debate about how the training works in the brain to improve vision. “With age, people lose the flexibility of the crystalline eye,” he said. “The images are fuzzy, or blurred. The brain’s task is to take the information and make it reliable. My conjecture is that even though the electrical information conveyed to the brain from the eye remains less reliable, the brain becomes more efficient and faster at interpreting that information.”

Blur discrimination is a function of contrast detection and so the GlassesOff training system uses contrast detection as a key aspect of its training. The app constantly monitors the contrast detection threshold and progressively increases levels of difficulty. Intervals between visual stimuli are shortened, thus training the brain to process images is faster.

The GlassesOff training is personalized for each user and begins with a vision assessment. “The vision evaluation is very sophisticated and accurate,” says Polat. “As we know, many factors can affect vision evaluation, including effort, fatigue, lighting, and the amount of time the user has to respond. So results are not always consistent from one optometrist to the next. Our test presents accurate images that look the same on any device, with images presented for limited duration. We get a very clear understanding of the user’s near-vision capability and the app will re-test from time to time as the user goes through the training.” Every session offers personalized feedback so that users can monitor their progress.

Adult amblyopia, previously thought to be untreatable, also yielded to the perceptual training developed by Prof. Polat before GlassesOff was established. In a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)³, a two-fold improvement in contrast sensitivity and letter-recognition tasks was reported in patients between 9 and 55 years of age.

Prof. Polat says current applications for this technology are the ‘low hanging fruit’: “We’re not just improving vision performance, but also processing speed, decision making, reading speed and reaction times.” He expects this perceptual training to also be applied to athletic training and other tasks that depend on fast visual processing and reaction times.

¹. www.glassesoff.com

². http://www.uripolat.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/srep00278.pdf

³. http://uripolat.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/2004-polat-pnas-amblyopia.pdf