Business
‘Autofocus’ specs promise sharp vision, near or far
Technology Reporter
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.
Business
No imminent change to tax-free allowance
There will be no immediate changes to cash Individual Savings Accounts (Isas), the BBC understands.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves was widely expected to announce plans to reduce the £20,000 tax-free allowance.
The move was aimed at encouraging more investment in stocks and shares, which the goverment says it will still focus on.
“Our ambition is to ensure people’s hard-earned savings are delivering the best returns and driving more investment into the UK economy,” a Treasury spokesperson said.
The Treasury is expected to continue to talk to banks, building societies and investment firms about options for reform.
An Isa is a savings or investment product that is treated differently for tax purposes.
Any returns you make from an Isa are tax-free, but there is a limit to how much money you can put in each year.
The current £20,000 annual allowance can be used in one account or spread across multiple Isa products as you wish.
Business
UK economy shrank unexpectedly in May
The economy shrank by 0.1%, the second month in a row it has contracted.
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Business
Trump threatens 35% tariffs on Canadian goods
US President Donald Trump has said he will slap a 35% tariff on Canadian goods starting 1 August, even as the two countries are days away from a self-imposed deadline to reach a new deal on trade.
The missive came as Trump also threatened blanket tariffs of 15% or 20% on most trade partners, and said he would soon notify the European Union of a new tariff rate on its goods.
Trump announced the latest levies on Canada on Thursday in a letter posted to social media and addressed to Prime Minister Mark Carney.
The US has already imposed a blanket 25% tariff on some Canadian goods, and the country is feeling the pain of the Trump administration’s global steel, aluminium and auto tariffs.
The letter is among more than 20 that Trump had posted this week to US trade partners, including Japan, South Korea and Sri Lanka.
Like Canada’s letter, Trump has vowed to implement those tariffs on trade partners by 1 August.
The US has imposed a 25% tariff on all Canadian imports, though there is a current exemption in place for goods that comply with a North American free trade agreement.
It is unclear if the latest tariffs threat would apply to goods covered by the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).
Trump has also imposed a global 50% tariff on aluminium and steel imports, and a 25% tariff on all cars and trucks not build in the US.
He also recently announced a 50% tariff on copper imports, scheduled to take effect next month.
Canada sells about three-quarters of its goods to the US, and is an auto manufacturing hub and a major supplier of metals, making the US tariffs especially damaging to those sectors.
Trump’s letter said the 35% tariffs are separate to those sector-specific levies.
“As you are aware, there will be no tariff if Canada, or companies within your country, decide to build or manufacture products within the United States,” Trump stated.
He also tied the tariffs to what he called “Canada’s failure” to stop the flow of fentanyl into the US, as well as Canada’s existing levies on US dairy farmers and the trade deficit between the two countries.
“If Canada works with me to stop the flow of Fentanyl, we will, perhaps, consider an adjustment to this letter. These Tariffs may be modified, upward or downward, depending on our relationship with Your Country,” Trump said.
President Trump has accused Canada – alongside Mexico – of allowing “vast numbers of people to come in and fentanyl to come in” to the US.
According to data from the US Customs and Border Patrol, only about 0.2% of all seizures of fentanyl entering the US are made at the Canadian border, almost all the rest is confiscated at the US border with Mexico.
In response to Trump’s complaints, Canada announced more funding towards border security and had appointed a fentanyl czar earlier this year.
Canada has been engaged in intense talk with the US in recent months to reach a new trade and security deal.
At the G7 Summit in June, Prime Minister Carney and Trump said they were committed to reaching a new deal on within 30 days, setting a deadline of 21 July.
Trump threatened in the letter to increase levies on Canada if it retaliated. Canada has already imposed counter-tariffs on the US, and has vowed more if they failed to reach a deal by the deadline.
In late June, Carney removed a tax on big US technology firms after Trump labelled it a “blatant attack” and threatened to call off trade talks.
Carney said the tax was dropped as “part of a bigger negotiation” on trade between the two countries.
The Prime Minister’s office told the BBC they did not have immediate comment on Trump’s letter.
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