PixelOptics emPower! electronic eyeglasses hands-on

PixelOptics is demoing what it claims is the most significant development in prescription eyewear in 50 years: emPower! PixelOptics’ glasses offer up better field of view and less distortion than traditional lenses by sandwiching an LCD-like layer in the glass that can be focused with an electrical charge. The set’s inbuilt micro-machine accelerometer detects when you tip your head down — when you read, for example — and triggers the glasses’ focal area for presbyopia. The emPower! lens can also be set to manual and is then activated by a swipe of your finger on the frame. The kit includes the glasses and the inductive charger that will keep the eyewear powered up and running for a couple days. We were able to get some video of the lens in action focusing on a tie — it is impressive to say the least — the change happens as quickly as your eye blinks and is not noticeable when not activated. We’d say PixelOptics is on to something here, and if you’re the type to plonk down $1,200 for a pair of glasses, these are definitely worth a peek. The only thing missing is a micro speaker that blasts out Bionic Man sounds each time you fire them up — but we’ve great hope somebody will hack that in. Gallery: PixelOptics emPower! electronic eyeglasses hands-on Continue reading PixelOptics emPower! electronic eyeglasses hands-on PixelOptics emPower! electronic eyeglasses hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Jan 2011 19:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Posted by on January 8, 2011. Filed under News, Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry