Chris Ryser
06-11-2007, 01:56 PM
Press Release
MIT STUDENT INVENTOR SEES CLEAR FUTURE IN ëDESKTOP PRINTERí FOR LOW-COST EYEGLASS LENSES
Saul Griffith Awarded $30,000 Lemelson-MIT
Student Prize for Inventiveness
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (February 19, 2004)—Massachusetts Institute of Technology doctoral candidate Saul Griffith, whose inventions include a ìdesktop printerî for low-cost eyeglass lenses, received the prestigious $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize ........................
Low-Cost Eyewear
Griffith’s advances in low-cost lenses sprung from his interests in rapid prototyping technologies and efficient manufacturing. Using a process dubbed programmable molding, he created a portable device similar to a desktop printer that can produce any prescription lens from a single-mold surface in five to 10 minutes.
The device casts the lenses by applying pressure and constraints to a programmable membrane, which becomes the mold surface when under pressure. The current device uses car window tinting film for the membrane and a reservoir of baby oil for applying the correct pressure. A large range of lens types, covering the majority of prescriptions, can be cast from two such mold surfaces.
Traditional lens manufacturing systems require expensive molds for each lens type. In remote rural areas, it is cost-prohibitive to maintain a library of thousands of lenses for relatively small populations of people. The traditional process not only comes with enormous inventory and handling costs, but also can result in excessive waste. Griffithís patent-pending device essentially eliminates these problems.
But efficient lens manufacturing is only half the issue. Proper diagnosis of vision problems is the other half. Current automatic diagnostic technologies are expensive, fragile and error-prone. Because they rely on a patient looking at electronically generated images a few inches away from his or her face, they can lead to incorrect diagnoses. Plus, highly skilled people are required to operate these machines.
To resolve this problem, Griffith has created a prototype device to test the human eye. Patients need only wear the device, which looks like an oversized pair of goggles, and look at the world around them. An electronic sensor superimposed on the goggles monitors the lens in the wearerís eye and adjusts the deviceís lens to cancel the refractive errors, thus determining the correct prescription. In 2001, Griffith and colleague Neil Houghton won the Harvard Business School Social Enterprise Business Plan Contest for the concept. They have since started a company called Low Cost Eyeglasses (www.lowcosteyeglasses.net (http://www.lowcosteyeglasses.net) ) to manufacture and market the product.
The whole story at: http://web.mit.edu/invent/n-pressreleases/n-press-04SP.html
I am wondering that now, as 3 years have passed, anybody has heard about this new concept, and if it is on the market.
MIT STUDENT INVENTOR SEES CLEAR FUTURE IN ëDESKTOP PRINTERí FOR LOW-COST EYEGLASS LENSES
Saul Griffith Awarded $30,000 Lemelson-MIT
Student Prize for Inventiveness
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (February 19, 2004)—Massachusetts Institute of Technology doctoral candidate Saul Griffith, whose inventions include a ìdesktop printerî for low-cost eyeglass lenses, received the prestigious $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize ........................
Low-Cost Eyewear
Griffith’s advances in low-cost lenses sprung from his interests in rapid prototyping technologies and efficient manufacturing. Using a process dubbed programmable molding, he created a portable device similar to a desktop printer that can produce any prescription lens from a single-mold surface in five to 10 minutes.
The device casts the lenses by applying pressure and constraints to a programmable membrane, which becomes the mold surface when under pressure. The current device uses car window tinting film for the membrane and a reservoir of baby oil for applying the correct pressure. A large range of lens types, covering the majority of prescriptions, can be cast from two such mold surfaces.
Traditional lens manufacturing systems require expensive molds for each lens type. In remote rural areas, it is cost-prohibitive to maintain a library of thousands of lenses for relatively small populations of people. The traditional process not only comes with enormous inventory and handling costs, but also can result in excessive waste. Griffithís patent-pending device essentially eliminates these problems.
But efficient lens manufacturing is only half the issue. Proper diagnosis of vision problems is the other half. Current automatic diagnostic technologies are expensive, fragile and error-prone. Because they rely on a patient looking at electronically generated images a few inches away from his or her face, they can lead to incorrect diagnoses. Plus, highly skilled people are required to operate these machines.
To resolve this problem, Griffith has created a prototype device to test the human eye. Patients need only wear the device, which looks like an oversized pair of goggles, and look at the world around them. An electronic sensor superimposed on the goggles monitors the lens in the wearerís eye and adjusts the deviceís lens to cancel the refractive errors, thus determining the correct prescription. In 2001, Griffith and colleague Neil Houghton won the Harvard Business School Social Enterprise Business Plan Contest for the concept. They have since started a company called Low Cost Eyeglasses (www.lowcosteyeglasses.net (http://www.lowcosteyeglasses.net) ) to manufacture and market the product.
The whole story at: http://web.mit.edu/invent/n-pressreleases/n-press-04SP.html
I am wondering that now, as 3 years have passed, anybody has heard about this new concept, and if it is on the market.