They look like an ordinary pair of glasses – but these are tech-packed specs.

On a Zoom call, Niko Eiden, chief executive and co-founder of Finnish eyewear firm IXI, holds up the frames with lenses containing liquid crystals, meaning their vision-correcting properties can change on the fly.

This one pair could correct the vision of someone who normally uses totally different pairs of glasses for seeing near or far.

“These liquid crystals… we can rotate them with an electrical field,” explains Mr Eiden.

“It’s totally, freely tuneable.” The position of those crystals affects the passage of light through the lenses. A built-in eye-tracker allows the glasses to respond to whatever correction the wearer needs at a given moment.

However, tech-laden eyewear has a troubled history – take Google’s ill-fated “Glass” smart glasses.

Consumer acceptability is key, acknowledges Mr Eiden. Most people don’t want to look like cyborgs: “We need to make our products actually look like existing eyewear.”

The market for eyewear tech is likely to grow.

Presbyopia, an age-related condition that makes it harder to focus on things close to you, is projected to become more common over time as the world’s population ages. And myopia, or short-sightedness, is also on the rise.

Spectacles have remained largely the same for decades. Bifocal lenses – in which a lens is split into two regions, usually for either near- or far-sightedness – require the wearer to direct their vision through the relevant region, depending on what they want to look at, in order to see clearly.

Varifocals do a similar job but the transitions are much smoother.

In contrast, auto-focus lenses promise to adjust part or all of the lens spontaneously, and even accommodate the wearer’s changing eyesight over time.

“The first lenses that we produced were horrible,” admits Mr Eiden, candidly.

Those early prototypes were “hazy”, he says, and with the lens quality noticeably poor at its edges.

But newer versions have proved promising in tests, says Mr Eiden. Participants in the company’s trials have been asked, for example, to read something on a page, then look at an object in the distance, to see whether the glasses respond smoothly to the transition.

Mr Eiden says that the eye tracking device within the spectacles cannot determine exactly what a wearer is looking at, though certain activities such as reading are in principle detectable because of the nature of eye movements associated with them.

Since such glasses respond so closely to the wearer’s eye behaviour, it’s important the frames fit well, says Emilia Helin, product director.

IXI’s frames are adjustable but not to a great degree, given the delicate electronics inside, she explains: “We have some flexibility but not full flexibility.” That’s why IXI hopes to ensure that the small range of frames it has designed would suit a wide variety of faces.

The small battery secreted inside IXI’s autofocus frames should last for two days, says Mr Eiden, adding that it’s possible to recharge the specs overnight while the wearer is asleep.

But he won’t be drawn on a launch date, which he intends to reveal later this year. As for cost, I ask whether £1,000 might be the sort of price tag he has in mind. He merely says, “I’m smiling when you say it but I won’t confirm.”

Autofocus lenses could help people who struggle with varifocals or bifocals, says Paramdeep Bilkhu, clinical adviser at the College of Optometrists.

However, he adds, “There is insufficient evidence to state whether they perform as well as traditional options and whether they can be used for safety critical tasks such as driving.”

Chi-Ho To, an optometry researcher, at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University has a similar concern – what if the vision correction went wrong or was delayed slightly while he was, say, performing surgery on someone?

“But I think in terms of general use having something that allows autofocusing is a good idea,” he adds.

Mr Eiden notes that the first version of his company’s lenses will not alter the entire lens area. “One can always glance over the dynamic area,” he says. If wholly self-adjusting lenses emerge then safety will become “a much more serious business”, he adds.

In 2013, UK firm Adlens released glasses that allowed wearers to manually change the optical power of the lenses via a small dial on the frames. These lenses contained a fluid-filled membrane, which when compressed in response to dial adjustments would alter its curvature.

Adlens’ current chief executive Rob Stevens says the specs sold for $1,250 (£920) in the US and were “well received by consumers” but not so much by opticians, which he says “strangled sales”.

Since then, technology has moved on and the concept of lenses that refocus themselves automatically, without manual interventions, has emerged.

Like IXI and other companies, Adlens is working on glasses that do this. However, Mr Stevens declines to confirm a launch date.

Joshua Silver, an Oxford University physicist, founded Adlens but no longer works for the company.

He came up with the idea of fluid-filled adjustable lenses back in 1985 and developed glasses that could be tuned to the wearer’s needs and then permanently set to that prescription.

Such lenses have enabled roughly 100,000 people in 20 countries to access vision correcting technology. Prof Silver is currently seeking investment for a venture called Vision, which would further rollout these glasses.

As for more expensive, electronics-filled auto-focus specs, he questions whether they will have broad appeal: “Wouldn’t [people] just go and buy reading glasses, which would more or less do the same thing for them?”

Other specs tech is even slowing down the progression of eye conditions such as myopia, beyond just correcting for them.

Prof To has developed glasses lenses that have a honeycomb-like ring in them. Light passing through the centre of the ring, focused as normal, reaches the wearer’s retina and allows them to see clearly.

However, light passing through the ring itself is defocused slightly meaning that the peripheral retina gets a slightly blurred image.

This appears to slow improper eyeball growth in children, which Prof To says cuts the rate of short-sightedness progression by 60%. Glasses with this technology are now in use in more than 30 countries, he adds.

British firm SightGlass has a slightly different approach – glasses that gently reduce the contrast of someone’s vision to similarly affect eye growth and myopia progression.

While autofocus glasses and other high-tech solutions may have promise, Prof To has an even bigger goal: glasses that don’t just slow down myopia but actually reverse it slightly – a tantalising prospect that could improve the vision of potentially billions of people.

“There is growing evidence that you can do it,” teases Prof To.

“Deeply regrettable” is how Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has described US President Donald Trump’s latest tariff threat – a 25% levy on Japanese goods.

Tokyo, a long-time US ally, has been trying hard to avoid exactly this. It has been seeking concessions for its beleaguered car makers, while resisting pressure to open its markets to American rice.

There have been many rounds of negotiations. Japan’s trade minister has visited Washington DC at least seven times since April, when Trump announced sweeping tariffs against friends and foes.

And yet, those trips seem to have borne little fruit. Trump’s label for Tokyo moved from “tough” to “spoiled” as talks dragged on.

And then this week, Japan joined a list of 22 nations that were sent tariff letters – 14 of those are in Asia. From South Korea to Sri Lanka, many are export-driven manufacturing hubs.

They have until 1 August to strike a deal with the US. But they are likely wondering about their chances given that Japan, a staunch ally that has been openly pursuing a deal, is still facing a steep levy.

Trump has reset the tariffs clock – again. So who is winning, and who is losing?

In one sense, almost all of the countries targeted by Trump earlier this year benefit from the deadline extension – they now have more than three weeks more to strike deals.

“The optimistic case is that there is pressure now to engage in further negotiations before the 1 August deadline,” said Suan Teck Kin, head of research at United Overseas Bank.

Growing economies like Thailand and Malaysia, which received tariff letters this week, will be especially eager to seek a solution. They are also caught in the middle of US-China tensions as Washington targets Chinese exports rerouted through third countries, what are known as transhipped goods.

Economists have told the BBC that further extensions are likely, given the complexity of trade agreements.

Countries will need time to implement Trump’s demands, which, going by the letters, are not entirely clear, said business lecturer Alex Capri from the National University of Singapore.

For instance, transhipped goods have been specifically levied as part of Vietnam’s trade deal with the US. But it is unclear whether that applies to finished goods, or to all imported components.

Either way, it will involve far more sophisticated technology to keep track of supply chains, Mr Capri said.

“It’s going to be a slow, long-term and evolving process involving many third parties, tech companies and logistic partners.”

It seems clear that tariffs are here to stay, which makes global trade the loser.

Companies from the US, Europe and China with global businesses remain at risk, Mr Capri said. This hurts not just exporters, but also US importers and consumers.

And it is a blow for the economic ambitions of large parts of Asia, whose rise has been fuelled by manufacturing, from electronics to textiles.

It is unwise to make zero-sum observations on which countries are winning and losing, Mr Capri added, because international trade, especially between US and China is so deeply inter-linked.

Some countries, however, could lose more than others.

Vietnam was the first in Asia to strike a deal, but it has little leverage against Washington, and is now facing levies up to 40%. The same goes for Cambodia. A poor country heavily reliant on exports, it has been negotiating a deal as Trump threatens 35% tariffs.

South Korea and Japan, on the other hand, may be able to hold out longer, because they are richer and have stronger geo-political levers.

India, which too has leverage of its own, has not been issued a letter yet. A deal has seemed imminent but appears to be delayed by key sticking points, including access to the Indian agricultural market and the country’s import rules.

“Despite its close economic and military relationship with the US, Japan is being treated the same as other Asian trade partners,” said economist Jesper Koll.

And that could transform the relationship, especially as Tokyo, with its large financial reserves, appears to be ready for the long game.

“Japan has proven to be a tough negotiator and I think that has annoyed Trump,” Mr Koll said.

Despite a rice shortage that has sent prices soaring, PM Ishiba has refused to buy US rice, choosing instead to protect domestic farmers. His government has also refused to give in to US demands to increase its military spending.

“They are well prepared,” Mr Koll argued. He said the day after Trump announced tariffs in April, Tokyo declared an economic emergency and set up hundreds of consultation centres to assist affected companies.

“Japan will be seeking a deal that is credible,” he said, because what’s the guarantee Trump won’t change his mind again?

With Japan’s upper-house election due this month, it would be surprising if a deal is agreed by August, Mr Koll said.

“No-one is happy. But is this something that is going to force a recession in Japan? No.”

Asia has long been seen as a key battleground between Washington and Beijing, and analysts say, because of tariffs, Trump may be ceding ground.

For one, given how complex these deals can be, Trump may be overplaying his hand by extending the deadline again, according to some observers.

“The bargaining position of the US has actually been diminished as they have revealed that their hand isn’t actually as strong as they would like,” said NUS economics professor David Jacks.

And the deals that are made could come at the cost of reshaping trade and ties built over decades.

Trump’s choice of posting the letters online, rather than through traditional diplomatic channels, could backfire, said Mr Capri, who described it as “political theatre”.

The confusion caused is a “great gift” to China, which is trying to portray itself as a stable alternative to Trump’s unpredictability, he added.

But the US market is not easy to replace – and Beijing has its fair share of tensions with countries in this part of the world, from Vietnam to Japan.

China is in the middle of its own trade negotiations the US, although it has longer to strike a full agreement – until 13 August.

So who will win more friends in this trade war is hard to say, but the race is still on.

“Both parties see the need for a divorce,” Prof Jacks said, “but getting there will be tough and involve proceedings which will span years, if not decades.”