FreeVisionInfo.com Blog

Vision Information, News & Resources

Category : FVI News

Panasonic Making Electronic Lenses

December 13th 2010 Posted at FVI News
2 Comments

If the lenses for your eyeglasses simply aren’t good enough, how bout some electronic lenses that do the focusing for you? That’s what Panasonic and PixelOptics have in store for 2011.

According to a recent press release sent out by Panasonic’s corporate site, the Japanese electronics co. is working with PixelOptics to build lenses for emPower!, PixelOptic’s electronically focusing glasses.

Ron Blum, President and CEO of Pixel said, “I am delighted to be able to make this announcement. Panasonic is an outstanding company, with a long history of being best in class in electronics and manufacturing. They will deliver for Pixel an outstanding electronic focusing lens product.”

Ron Blum further stated, “The lens product that will be manufactured by Panasonic will be an electronic semi-finished lens blank that is made out of 1.67 thin and lightweight optical grade plastic material having a very thin layer of liquid crystal buried beneath the front surface of the lens blank. This allows for virtually all prescriptions to be fabricated. Semi-finished lens blanks are an industry standard, having a known finished curvature on the convex side of the lens blank and being unfinished on the other side. However, prior to emPower! these standard semi-finished lens blanks had a static focus. This means that once shaped into the proper prescription or focus the prescription is frozen and is not capable of a change of focus. The emPower! electronic semi-finished lens blanks represents the first electronic semi-finished lens blanks in the world. The emPower! electronic semi-finished lens blanks are capable of dynamic focus and with appropriate processing into finished lenses are capable of changing focus from far to near while allowing clear vision  of  everything in between once fabricated to the wearer’s eyeglass prescription.”

The glasses are intended for those who have bifocal or progressive lenses. The  lenses instantly focus on objects when they are up close. They are powered by a rechargeable battery and have three modes of operation: automatic, manual on, and manual off.

This business venture is led by Panasonic’s healthcare department, Panasonic Healthcare Co., Ltd. Yukinori Okazaki, Chief Technology Officer of Panasonic Healthcare Co., Ltd. added “It is indeed a pleasure to have now passed this project on to the Business Unit of Panasonic Healthcare Co., Ltd.  to assist  Pixel  in  its  scale  up  and  manufacturing  needs.   emPower!  represents  a  major  step  forward  for providing  better  vision  correction  to  the  millions  of  patients  worldwide  who  are  afflicted  with presbyopia.   Presbyopia  is  a  very  common  vision  disorder  that  affects  individuals  at  approximately  40 years  of  age.   It  causes  these  individuals  to  have  trouble  focusing  on  objects  that  are  close  at  first  and then also at their finger tip distance a few years later on.”

The lenses and glasses combo are expected to hot the market in late 2011, early 2012. Check back here for more details as this story develops.

“Know About The Glow” Campaign Sheds Light on Children’s Eye Disease

November 15th 2010 Posted at FVI News
0 Comments

When you take a picture of a child and the photograph reveals a yellow glow in their eye, it might be something much more dangerous than just a camera reflection. Megan Webber discovered this when she noticed that numerous pictures of her son showed a glow in his left eye. Luckily for her and her son, Benjamin, she took him to the hospital almost immediately and his vision was saved.

The reoccurring glow in Benjamin’s eye was a sign of Coats’ disease. Coats’ disease is a lack of capillary growth in the retina, which leads to underdeveloped vision and even blindness in children.  The “glow” in photographs is caused by a cholesterol deposits in the eye that reflect back the camera flash instead the blood vessels reflecting back a reddish glow.

After Megan discovered that her son had Coats’ disease, she and the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles joined forces to start the “Know About The Glow” campaign, which aims to inform parents of this potentially blinding and often unnoticed eye disease. You can find out more about “Know About The Glow” here, and you can red more about Coats’ disease here.

Acid Victim’s Story a Hoax

September 20th 2010 Posted at FVI News, Sunglasses
2 Comments

Here at FreeVisionInfo.com, we take health very seriously. When we hear a story about a person’s face being seriously damaged from an acid attack, we pride ourselves in helping get that story out to the public as soon as possible for the victim’s sake. The more online publicity that we can offer, the better the chances that the situation will get remedied as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, the acid attack story that we blogged about early this month turned out to be a hoax. The victim, Bethany Storro, recently admitted to the police that there was no African American woman who splashed a cup full of liquid acid into her face. The acid wounds were self-inflicted, the story was made up.

No one is quite sure just yet why this woman would self-inflict such a serious wound, or why she would blame it on someone else. The local police have spent countless hours investigating the case, many banks and other charities have started donations for Storro, and the media has taken to the story like wildfire.

We sincerely apologize to our fellow readers about this misinformation; we had every reason to believe its credibility at the time of release. Besides all of this, we sincerely hope for a speedy recovery for Storro, physically and mentally. Whatever mental afflictions that torment Storro to do such a thing to herself and everyone else must surely be more painful than her self-inflicted wound.

Related articles by Zemanta

Man Gets Ant Stuck Inside Eye

August 19th 2010 Posted at FVI News
5 Comments

Two weeks ago, a fellow co-worker of ours had an eye-opening experience with a small insect. John, a Web designer for FramesDirect.com, was sitting outside on the picnic table while on his lunch break, like he does on most days. But this day was different, while John was eating lunch and enjoying the outdoors, an ant fell from an overhanging tree branch and landed on his eyeglasses. John didn’t notice the hanger-on until he was back inside working at his desk.

“I saw something out of the corner of my eye crawling on the temple of my glasses,” John said. “I swatted at it and missed, but I knocked it onto my cheek and into the corner of my eye. Then I could feel him squirming around in there.”

While trying to casually brush the insect off of his face, John instead knocked the ant into his tear duct, from whence it crawled under his eyelid. But the ant didn’t stop its tracks there, as John started blinking frantically and rubbing his eye, the ant naturally attempted to protect itself and slipped underneath his eyeball to where it was unreachable and “out of sight,” so to speak.

“It didn’t really hurt at all, but I could feel him crawling around in my eye and it was driving me nuts.”

John decided that he should head to the emergency room immediately. Once he arrived at an emergency services location, they weren’t exactly sure what to do, so the doctor just stuck his head inside a sink and washed his eye out vigorously with water. John said he could still feel the ant inside there, but the doctor assured him that the ant was gone, or would “work its way out over time.”

Ironically (but luckily for him) John works for FramesDirect.com, which is an online eyewear store. The company is headed by two certified eye doctors, Dr. Cooper and Dr. Hodgson, so the next day John approached Dr. Cooper to get some professional advice on what to do about the ant in his eye.

“I told him it still felt like it was in there, he looked around in my eye really well and told me it was gone. He said that when an insect gets trapped like that, it emits an acid from its body so it will still feel like it’s there. Then he explained to me that there is a membrane around the eyeball which prevents anything from going behind the eye, it can only get beneath or above it.”

Meanwhile at the office, word had gotten around about John’s eye incident so we were all passing around corny jokes about his situation like, “Hey John, we heard your eye is ‘buggin’ you,” and “John’s super power is Ant Vision.” But by the time he arrived at the office the next day, we all felt too bad for him to keep the jokes going.

So what’s to learn from all of this? First of all, if a bug lands on your face, be sure to brush it away from your eye, not into it. Second, if you happen to have an insect fall in your eye, pray that you work at a business that has eye doctors on staff.

We’ve got our HONcode Certification!

August 5th 2010 Posted at FVI News
3 Comments

Looks like our hard work is paying off! FVI received HONcode certifaction this week. For those of you that don’t know, HON stands for Health Online Network, and is basically an Internet watchdog for health resources online. Any Internet site that has the HONcode stamp of approval is basically a completely trustworthy site for health information. We had to jump through a whole lotta hoops to get it, and we’re honored to have it on our site. Here is the link to the press release that went out this morning:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/FreeVisionInfo/Certification/prweb4348074.htm

Certification Solidifies Vision Information Site’s Credibility as an Online Health Information Provider

Austin, TX August 5, 2010 – FreeVisionInfo.com, the world’s leading online source for vision information, has earned their HONcode certification from the Health On the Net Foundation. This certification solidifies FreeVisionInfo’s credibility as an online health information provider, as well as an established business of legitimate, reliable and professional vision information.

“We’re very honored to have the HONcode on our website,” says Dr. Guy Hodgson, founder of FreeVisionInfo.com. “This symbol informs the public that they can trust FreeVisionInfo.com as a professional resource for any questions regarding eye information.”

FVI has also launched a host of new interactive features on their website, including a teacher resources section, custom-made videos, and a voice plug-in for the visually impaired that reads each article out loud. New features, articles, blog posts, and videos are being uploaded every day.

From the HON website:
HON was founded to encourage the dissemination of quality health information for patients and professionals, and to facilitate access to the latest and most relevant medical data.

The HONcode certification is an ethical standard aimed at offering quality health information. It demonstrates the intent of a website to publish useful, objective and correct data.

About FVI:
FreeVisionInfo.com is an online resource for vision information covering everything from eye care to eyewear. Our goal is to help people become more knowledgeable about eye health, vision, and all things optical so that they can make better informed decisions as patients and consumers about eye care issues. Our database of vision resources and articles is doctor reviewed, updated daily, and always growing.

All articles of a medical nature are co-authored, or reviewed for accuracy, by Dr. Guy Hodgson, OD or Dr. Dhavid Cooper, OD, founders of FramesDirect.com.

New Sunglasses from Prada

July 16th 2010 Posted at FVI News, Video
1 Comment

Have you visited Prada’s Website recently? Their new homepage features a music video of the classic jazz song “Fever” as reinterpreted by Katey Judd to promote their new sunglass model called FW10. The film is a slow, smooth shot of supermodel Angela Lindvall singing the tune around a group of retrosexual guys.  The shades are a classic cat eye shape, and they fit Lindvall’s facial frame like a glove.

It’s probably the only sunglasses commercial that features sunglasses for a mere few seconds throughout the entire video. In fact, if it didn’t say PRADA across the screen, you’d never know it was a sunglasses commercial. Now that’s strategic marketing!

Gaga’s Bad (Romance) Contacts

July 7th 2010 Posted at FVI News, Video
0 Comments

Lady Gaga’s oversized irises have been all the rage since the debut of her “Bad Romance” video in 2009. The large, plush, and deep anime look virtually became an overnight sensation after the vid hit the TV and Internet stations. All the Gaga fans wanted that doe-eyed look, and they wanted to know how to get it fast. Most people assumed that Gaga’s eyes were just digitally enhanced for the video, but after a little research it was discovered that contact lenses are available that give the bug-eye effect. So contact lens companies that make these specialty contacts soon made themselves open to the public to catch on to this Gaga phenomena. Sounds like everyone is satisfied right? Consumers and businesses pleasantly scratching each others’ backs? Not quite.

Word has it that these contacts are not physically healthy for the eyes. Though they are available for purchase from Japanese companies online, they have not been approved by the FDA and are therefore illegal in the U.S.

Problem #2: It’s also illegal to buy contact lenses in the U.S. without a doctor’s prescription. Long story short: if it goes in your eye, you need the Rx guy. There’s a lot of contact lenses out there that are poor quality and can cause all kinds if problems to your eyes (like bacterial infections and such), possibly even resulting in blindness. So if the doctors won’t sign for it and the government won’t approve it, that means there’s probably something wrong with it. I’m not saying that buying these anime contacts and shoving them in your eye is going to make you blind, but the risk is definitely apparent.

Yes, those bulging brown irises are very unique and Gaga-esque, but there’s plenty of other ways to go for the Gaga look that are much less hazardous to your health. Play it safe and go for the burning cigarettes or razor blade sunglasses instead. ; )

~ Carson Barker

New Sunglasses at FramesDirect

May 17th 2010 Posted at FVI News
2 Comments

News flash everyone, FramesDirect.com has two new lines of sunglasses on their site, just in time for summer. Von Zipper and Suncloud have just gone live on FD. Suncloud is like a less expensive version of Costa Del Mar, all polarized and made for the great outdoors. Von Zipper, on the other hand, is… well… cleverly eclectic.  Their look is all over the place, from the futuristic cyborg shades called Bionacle, to the street smart and savvy Skitches.  The best part is that both brands are VERY reasonably priced, most of them under $100. So check it out when you get a chance, I’ve posted a few corresponding pics below to give you a better idea of what they look like.

~ Carson Barker

VonZipper Sunglasses Skitch

VonZipper Sunglasses Bionacle

Suncloud Sunglasses Grid

Suncloud Sunglasses Poppy

New Aviators Sunglasses from Ray-Ban

May 14th 2010 Posted at FVI News, Uncategorized
0 Comments

Some things never go out of style, and Ray-Ban Aviators are one of them. These timelessly cool shades have been a mainstay in silver screen legends and rock ‘n’ roll icons since the 1950s, and Ray-Ban isn’t going to change something if it still works. That being the case, Ray-Ban has taken the Aviators and spruced them up a bit with a neo-retro look, introducing six new Aviator designs. Ray-Ban also threw a release party for the new styles in New York with A-list bands and musicians including Iggy Pop, The Virgins, The Big Pink, The Plastiscines, We are Scientists, and Free Energy. Here’s a list of the new Aviators that Ray-Ban has in store, which range from $139-$485.

~ Carson Barker

Metal Glide

This style of Aviators look like they’ve been given a shot of electric blueberry juice. With a gradient tint and blue rims, these shades are sure to light up the night at the dance clubs.

Ray-Ban Craft

I can totally see myself wearing these sunglasses on a safari. The leather padding on the frames makes these shades look like something Theodore Roosevelt would wear in the early 1900s while out in the African bush, with an oversized shotgun hanging over his shoulder.

Road Spirit

My personal favorite, these black and bad shades go hand-in-hand with a Harley Davidson. Now all I need is a motorcycle.

Titanium

Replacing the traditional metal frames with milled titanium, this model is light, sturdy, and stylish. Polar gradient lenses top off this new style of Aviators.

Ultra Gold

This style has a 22K gold plating on the frames and the new P3 (P-Cube) lenses. Not sure what P3 lenses are, but hey, it’s covered in gold so who cares.

Ray-Ban Tech

These frames are made of carbon fiber, which is one of the most sturdy and lightweight materials available on the market today. If you’re accustomed to droping and mishandling your shades on a regular basis, save yourself some grief and buy a pair of shades that can handle it, like these. You’ll have to wait on this style though, it won’t be available until July.

Illegal Sunglasses

April 26th 2010 Posted at FVI News, Uncategorized
1 Comment

When I hear about millions of dollars in merchandise being seized by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection off the Californian shore, my first thought is that the merchandise is guns, drugs, or other illegal products. But what did the CBP really confiscate in the past month? Sunglasses.  Counterfeit, nonetheless. And $18.6 million worth at that.

It seems that seizing the sale of counterfeit goods is on the CBP’s agenda, and knowing the common American’s addiction to sunglasses, it’s just as profitable as selling illegal drugs or firearms. The problem with these cheapies is that though they may appear to resemble name brands like Versace, Coach and Louis Vuitton, they may not have the benefits of UV protection, shatter resistance, or other sunglass bonuses that increase value. The confiscated discount sunglasses were blatant trademark thievery; even using the same logo as the designer shades. As the old saying goes – if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. You can read the full story here.

~ Carson Barker

« Older Entries

Copyright 2010 FreeVisionInfo.com Blog | Powered by WordPress | Designed by Diamonds Designers