Get Your Eyes Tested With Smartphones

Bangalore: Technology has come a far way and soon smartphones will have one more function - telling you whether you need glasses or not.

Indian-born researcher Ramesh Raskar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) along with his team has developed a software and a smartphone accessory that can perform eye tests and save you a trip to the optometrist, reported Vanita Srivastava for Hindustan Times.

This device will enable to perform eye tests without the need for expensive equipment.

Raskar, associate professor in media arts and sciences at MIT, told HT "We have conducted scientific trials and hope to market the instrument in India in the next few months."

The device is called NETRA (Near Eye Tool for Refractive Assessment). It can be clipped on to a mobile phone with a suitable hi-resolution LCD display and it will then detect whether you need glasses. The test takes hardly any time and is done in less than a minute.

Raskar explained that after attaching the device, people with perfect vision will see a single line, while shortsighted or longsighted people will see multiple or distorted lines. This in turn will help people figure out the power of the glasses they need.

Raskar added that "Eyecare is a low priority area in India. Eyeglasses can help almost 300 million people."

What is more is that Raskar and his team have also built a camera that can film at a trillion frames per second, with the help of a technique that they call femto photography.