iPhone May Protect Your Eyes

Now, there is yet another reason to own an iPhone as an iPhone app is shown to improve one's eyesight. As we age, our eyesight deteriorates - it's a natural part of the aging process. But a new iPhone app may keep the eye doctor away for a little while longer.

When we reach middle age, the lenses in our eyes become less supple, making it more difficult to focus on objects that are close to us - which necessitates the use of reading glasses. The application trains the brain to translate blurry images into clear ones.

GlassesOff, an iPhone app from Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine, trains the brain to translate blurry images into clear ones through a simple game-like application. The app, which will be launched next year, has demonstrated remarkable success in clinical trials.

Prof. Uri Polat of TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the co-founder of Ucansi, the company that designed the software, said the application is designed to use the brain itself as glasses.

In the application, groups of blurry lines called Gabor patches appear at several points across the screen, and the user must identify when one appears in the center. In trials, users with an average age of 51 were able to read two lines lower on an eye-test chart after 40 uses of the application.