GlassesOff Inc., a neuroscience technology company based in Israel, has launched GlassesOff, an iPhone application that aims to eliminate the dependency on reading glasses of people over the age of 40 who have presbyopia.
The GlassesOff app is designed to improve the image processing function in the visual cortex of the brain, without changing the optical characteristics of the eye.
According to GlassesOff, the app is the result of years of research, resulting in several breakthroughs in the field of neuroscience. To complete the program, users need to spend just 12 to 15 minutes per day, three times a week, for about three months. The app will initially be available for iOS-operated devices (iPhone/iPad/iPod) and is expected to be available for Android-operated devices in early 2014, the company said.
Extensive scientific studies have demonstrated the efficacy of the GlassesOff program. In a study carried out at the University of California at Berkeley, all subjects who completed the GlassesOff program were able to read standard newspaper font size without the use of reading glasses, while improving their "Eye Age" by an average of 8.6 years. The results of this study were published in Nature's scientific publication, Scientific Reports.
"Traditionally, near distance reading improvement solutions were limited to optical corrections such as glasses, contact lenses and refractive surgery. However, human vision performance is in fact limited by two factors: the quality of an image captured by the eye and the image processing capability of the brain as it interprets such images," said Nimrod Madar, CEO of GlassesOff.
"GlassesOff's innovative solution is designed to improve reading by enhancing the image processing function of the visual cortex, demonstrating the amazing potential of the human brain," said Madar. "We created this app because we wanted to empower people who experienced natural age-related changes in reading ability to take control of their vision and improve their quality of life. Our personalized app constantly adapts according to users' progress, with the ultimate goal of freeing them from dependency on magnifying devices such as reading glasses."
The GlassesOff app is free to download from the
App Store and offers users access to a vision evaluation and the first segment of the GlassesOff program. After Using the GlassesOff app for approximately two weeks, users will be given the option to subscribe to the full version, which includes additional advanced segments, for $59.99. However, subscriptions will be offered for $9.99 to the first 10,000 users.
The GlassesOff app was named one of the top Emerging Breakthroughs in Science and Technology for 2013 by Reader's Digest Magazine.