Innovative eyewear

Some products are so fixed in the minds of the people that it doesn't come out of its fundamentals. It is just tweaked and designed differently in accordance with the times, but true foundation remains the same. Eyewears or so-called glasses is one of these products. Apparently, there seems to be an endeavor out of deadlock of the time to innovate it even further, with some tweak, but not to the product rather to its foundation. Innovation has always been the product of necessity. I'm going to talk about two new designs of the eyewears that came out of absolutely distinguished necessity, the first being cost-effectiveness and the second being convenience. Interestingly, both made for the masses at two opposite extremes of their incomes.

Glasses are made of, well, glasses. Their main objective is either to protect your eyes or to correct your vision. These products are, of course, made for the latter use. Although the magnifying glasses dates back to early Egyptian periods, the first invention of wearable glasses is credited to Salvino D'Armate from 13th century. The history of first traditional eyeglasses is desputable, but it is not the topic of our post. The primary objective of glasses is to deal with cases of hyperopia (farsightedness) and myopia (nearsightedness), where, respectively, convex and concave lenses are used. There has been lot of development (tweaking to the product) to the design as well as lenses of the glasses over long period of time. The present design dates back to 18th century, whereas the lens technology goes back to early stages of last century. Matching to the beginning of 21st century, there is now some tweaking to the fundamentals of the lens technology and to some extent to its design.



The first product I want to discuss is made for the masses at lower income side. There are various methods in modern era for eye correction. Over half an earth's population is poor and largest number of it is in need for proper eyeglasses. Not only their daily life, but also their only source of income depends on their ability to see things correctly. They can't afford simple eyeglasses, forget about contact lenses and expensive laser operations. They still depend on donated or used eyeglasses. These donated eyeglasses cannot be flexible to cover such huge masses with different degree of eyesight defects. Self-adjusting lenses seems to be very affordable solution which can well be adjusted to different needs of the patient as well as different situations they are in, e.g. for working, for reading, for driving, etc. The cheapest solution has been found by Joshua Silver, an Oxford physicist, who developed very simple, but very authentic eyeglasses where lenses can be self-adjusted. He is leading a center for vision at the University of Oxford, which is making this technology available to the needy people. There are many technologies one can use for adjustable lenses. The most popular is the fluid-filled adjustable lenses technology. As the official website says: Fluid-filled lenses use the incompressibility of liquids to change the physical shape of the lens. The lens is constructed with two flexible membranes on the optical surfaces, held in place by a solid surround. You can see that in the picture above. At the moment one pair of eyeglasses cost $19, but with the mass production, it is supposed to go down to $2. Like the cheap mobile phones were created for the masses in the developing countries, this product has really good future. And nonetheless, it is one of the best cost-effective solution for the benefits of the billions.




The second product is at the moment thought for the niché market. It is also based on self-adjusting fluid-filled lens technology. It functions almost the same way like the one above. It works with one firm and one flexible lenses. Flexible lens is made of rigid surface and one transparent membrane, which is filled with clear fluid. This creates an effect of another lens with different focal length. The advantage is that with the different shape of the lenses, you have different zoom function for different situation. There is no need to change your glasses. Well, this one is made really for the people at far extreme of their personal income. The pair of eyeglasses from TruFocals is going to cost 45 times more than the ones from Joshua Silver. It looks more sleek and elegant. And the frame is made of metal. All in all, it is definitely made for selected few. But I still respect the quality of innovation. At least, there's one difference between two products. The former one is equipped with two membrane, whereas the latter one has only one membrane film. Technically it is a great innovation. You can see the demonstration of the technology on their website.

Interestingly, both of these products have same retro design, which is kind of ironic considering scale of innovation, perhaps it is satirical challenge to the well established eyeglasses developers. The feat is almost like that of four-third camera Olympus EP-1 with cutting-edge technology, but retro-design of old rangefinders like Leica. This new tweaking to the fundamental principle of the eyeglasses is a very welcome move. The idea is so simple that I hope one day it makes fixed lenses bifocal eyeglasses obsolete. The entertaining ones visual senses does not demand such sophistication as needed in photography where fixed-lenses are still a gem. There are some limitations to fluid-filled lens solution. Nonetheless, it still manages to satisfy the needs of over 80% of the people with eyesight problems. It is the product which can be mass-produced with the same design and can be customized after selling it. It adds dramatically to the productivity of a person which can be felt at macro level of the economy indirectly. Honestly, there are very few such simple solutions to unnoticed problem.

Related articles by Zemanta

• TruFocals make steampunk glasses a functional, expensive reality (engadget.com)
• Scientist at Work: Stephen Kurtin: Making Eyeglasses That Let Wearers Change Focus on the Fly (nytimes.com)
• TruFocals are quirky (ubergizmo.com)
• Twitter Snapshot: Josh Silver's global vision for vision (ted.com)
• Bright ideas (guardian.co.uk)

Balancing online and offline life

Image by lintmachine via Flickr

Couple of years ago my online presence was limited to surfing, emailing and sometimes chatting. Friends were mostly the part of the offline activity. Over the time some friends left the city to pursue different career and rather deferred life elsewhere. Emailing was the main source of keeping contacts. But the time has changed ever since. The so-called socializing has become more prominent online activity than offline one. Emailing and traditional instant messaging became redundant and online social networking took over their place.

Perhaps rosy looking picture at the beginning of these networks, which was mostly painted by unprecedented enthusiasm towards this new platform, started intruding my offline activity very aggressively. The truth is that the true friends, even with sporadic contact over many years, don't forget you. But these online platforms somehow created some kind of compulsion and obligation that I should always check these portals, compensating the desire to meet some of them offline. As we age, we tend to have other responsibilities like that of new work, new projects, new goals and, this social activity seems to be intruding the time reserved for these. And these online social activities have become more like an addiction.

Now that the excitement of this new platform is fading away, the need is to realign it to ones routine life. As the online activity is important for socializing with ol' friends, the offline activity is also as important to socialize with the people with physical presence in real time. Anything, any sort of activity, in excess is always an addiction. There must always be trade-off or balance between any two opposite ends. This is not only valid in this context of online-offline activity, but also applies to anything at any stage of life.

I always believed that the world is neither left-handed nor right-handed, but rather both-handed. But rarely humans tends to see it this way. But the time always has the answer in the end. And everything results in blind balancing.

Evil of the controlled system

I saw the movie "Letter from Iwo Jima" yesterday. The movie was made by Clint Eastwood directly after directing preceding movie "Flags of our Fathers". It was about showing the people on the contra side of the war, who seems to be evil when we watch the movies from the regular side (well, the allied force's side). But the fact is, we have, in the end, human beings fighting against each other. Each have their own story. Then how come they can turn into beings who find their conviction reflected in the conviction of the evil ruler?

The movie was about second world war, so now we just go back 10-20 years before the war. US, UK, Germany, Japan, Russia, they all had diplomatic ties. Everything looked pretty much well-going. Why suddenly they found themselves in the dirt of war is the question for the historians, but in this blog my concern is how the well-built countries like Germany and Japan found the solace in evil acts, which were awarded wide public generosity in these nations. And the answer seems to be rather awkward. It wasn't the evil in the men, instead it was the evil of the controlled authoritarian regimes these countries were enjoying.

It is the power of the mass media, a creation of unfounded deliberate cause, the plight of the present working generation, which ignites the falsified patriotism among the population. Look in the history, whenever there was a authoritarian system, there were wars and conflicts. Freedom of speech gives the power in the hands of the people. It may create some kind of communal conflicts, but finally well-accepted affirmative solution is put forward. In the controlled system, the power lies in the hand of few, who, if fanatic, can cause disturbing relationship with its neighbours or even with their bad-time allies. Cultural exchanges can take place, like it took place between German and American universities or to some extent between Japanese and American army, but it doesn't act like a vaccine, when the controlled system is later to be infected with the evil-mind virus. Hence, from friends become enemies. The controlled system may look enigmatic and the best, e.g. creation of German industry from the ruins of the first world war and great infrastructural development thereafter. It made German life prosperous, but it never protected Germany from the infection of fascism.

In my opinion, each country should be wary of the controlled system. And the control of a nation can be given to the people only through freedom of speech, not just by thinking collectives of few intellectuals doing it so. Any system is a controlled system, as long as there is no room for the opposite opinion. And any preceding friendship gesture towards the people of the controlled system can be futile in a wake of the evil-mind virus in the controller of such system.

To try or not to try Google: that is the question

Now I'm afraid of trying any new Google product, since it may get scraped. Last few weeks we have seen news of change in strategy affecting many services, even to their demise, like no uploading to Google Video, absolute discontinuation of Google Notebook, Mashup Editor, Dodgeball and no made-by-google development of Jaiku.

Jaiku is released as open source project under Apache licence. Jaiku engine is ported to new Google App Engine and, in fact, Google App Engine was a further development of Mashup Editor.

The whole operation looks like a restructuring of Google's online presence, keeping in mind the hard times coming up due to global slowdown. I think we won't hear any mega nor under-the-lip takeover deal from Google in the near future. Honestly, even during those glory days, Google as whole didn't seem that serious about developing those products.

After taking over Jaiku in 2007, it was kept in closed beta (still it was so before this news) and hardly any user witnessed big development, although there were many expectations. Jaiku was serious competitor to Twitter, but, albeit many interesting features, being so closed, like closed chinese economy in 15th century, hardly anyone learned of its richness and it became "unpopular". Story ain't different in case of other hurt products. I think dreams of all those newbie entrepreneurs to be a part of Google shall fill the heat and they shall wish those dreams never come true. I am glad there are many entrepreneurs out there, who shall not allow information technology sector to be a part of incumbency capitalism.

Jaiku ain't dead

Jaiku is not disappearing completely from the scene. It would have been an another shock for me after demise of Pownce. Here is what Google has to say about it:

While Google will no longer actively develop the Jaiku codebase, the service itself will live on thanks to a dedicated and passionate volunteer team of Googlers.

Many microblogging sites are feeling the heat after higher growth trajectory of Twitter, which has found acceptance even among professionals, like reporters, celebrities, players, etc. It can be said the same about Skype couple of years ago, when many reporters started using it in first in remote areas, then on regular basis. But I personally think that the competition is very important for better services. Well, maybe Jaiku has chosen different path, but it shall amuse loyal microbloggers over the course of time.

Company, an engaging bollywood flick like Departed

I wonder how many people know that the oscar winning movie "Departed" was remake of great HK production called "Infernal Affairs". The intensity, the music composition and climax in original movie was second to none. I put this bollywood production "Company" in the same category. Like many big cities, Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay) is also eroded by the underworld. This movie shows real life in Mumbai, the events which happens backstage. The director Ram Gopal Verma has talent to make such movies. It is quite sad that in western market such good HK and bollywood productions rarely find the respected place. Nonetheless, this movie shall definitely find a place in my exclusive DVD shelf.

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'Bushism' from the 'misunderestimated' president

I think, never in the history, the president of the USA had such a legacy like that of George W. Bush. The "Bushism" has become a phenomenon in the media. I found some of them on BBC News. But I quote here only my favourites.

"Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYN's aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country."
Poplar Bluff, Missouri, 6 September, 2004

"Those who enter the country illegally violate the law."
Tucson, Arizona, 28 November, 2005

"And truth of the matter is, a lot of reports in Washington are never read by anybody. To show you how important this one is, I read it, and [Tony Blair] read it."
On the publication of the Baker-Hamilton Report, Washington DC, 7 December, 2006


I believe the intelligence report on Iraq was one of those "a lot of reports in Washington". The world would have been different, if "anybody" had read it, too.

source: The 'misunderestimated' president?
Technorati Tags: bush, usa, bushism

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Kepler mission: a search for earth-sized planet

The quest to find a earth-like planet continues. Kepler Mission is a proper addition after european CoRoT mission. CoRoT was kept as an open secret with tedious french connection, even rather very open scientific community has no direct access. I think it will change with Kepler, which has gone social with its own presence in Twittverse. I wish the whole team all the best and am looking forward to first results.

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Way of making intellectual followers

If one creates a cause and gathers pretty much bunch of intellectuals, it is easy that such a cause can get promoted. There is a application related to the cause of "Cause". This is pretty much longer process, but eventually it succeeds and leaves one wondering whether it was fundamentally a good cause or not. The latest example of it is biofuel.


Let's briefly look at the other examples first. The climate change. It was mooted few decades ago by some scientist, how the greenhouse effect is important to any planet, and in one of our nearest planet, Venus, it is remarkably visible (it has the densest atmosphere in terrestrial planet, consisting of carbon dioxide). The evolution of the cause created IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change), which had become very engaging international political body, which in fact, promotes this cause. Although there had been some attempts to call this cause a "swindle", it has remained firm and accumulated huge number of intellectual followers, which resulted in many conferences, petitions, resolutions, making this cause a industry in itself. The other example is not of very economical benefit, but pretty important in the field of natural science, which is of "Dark Energy". The so-to-be portmanteau word has created sensation. It was even used widely in the media, so this way, it secured great followers and direct funding, which is pretty rare case in natural sciences. And all the new cosmological models explaining the evolution of the universe are based on that. Although the validity of its being is a big question in cosmology, but it is anticipated by very few intellectuals, since this concept (cause) had created many great followers. In the end, dark energy is the substitute for something missing in the equations derived from very unrealistic suppositions. But it still has many intellectual followers and more than a billion dollars are already invested for the project related to this cause.


But now I'd like to come back to biofuels. Many knows that the biofuel is one of the prime reasons for surge in food prices all around the world, but this cause had already established itself and created many followers. Lot of conferences are taking place on this subject, money is poured into new research, scientists are working on standardizing which plants can be classified as biofuel compatible. Well, all in all, the world has once again managed to create many intellectual followers, without testing it on fundamental ground. Biofuel may be one of the best solutions, although being a prime reason for food price rise, one should be careful of these intellectual followers, who in the end becomes intellectual promoters (marketing personnel?!) of the "cause" of their "divine interest".


Technorati Tags: world views