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Thread: Luxottica Buys US Online Retailer glasses.com ..............................

  1. #1
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    Blue Jumper Luxottica Buys US Online Retailer glasses.com ..............................

    Apparently no rumor ..................................



    Companies
    thursday, 09 january 2014
    Luxottica Group S.p.A. has announced it has entered into an asset purchase agreement
    to acquire glasses.com from WellPoint Inc. subject to customary closing conditions.

    "Today we are announcing the agreement to acquire a technology which we believe
    will benefit the overall eyewear sector and the optical industry in North America, a
    crucial market for our group and one we remain strongly committed to" said
    Andrea Guerra, Chief Executive Officer at Luxottica. "The acquisition will function
    as a starting point to shape an independent, digital platform through which the
    North American market can and will access the unique domain, innovating the
    shopping experience and improving the quality of products and services available to
    consumers."

    The eyewear industry in North America is estimated today to be a USD 35.5 billion
    market with the opportunity to grow to USD 44-47 billion by 2020 according to
    Vision Council and Company estimates. Demographic factors, such as an increase
    in the number of individuals needing vision correction products, the projected
    increase in eye exams each year, and the greater penetration of premium eyewear
    are all expected to drive continued growth.

    Luxottica believes that the investment in technology and the development of an
    accessible digital platform for the North American trade are crucial next steps in
    developing the market to its full potential. By investing in online innovation and
    providing accessibility to independent practitioners, Luxottica can offer both the
    doctor and the consumer a unique seamlessly integrated, superior experience.

    The acquisition of glasses.com will not have a material impact on Luxottica's consolidated financial statement. The agreement is subject to customary closing conditions and the transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2014.

    Australian company PlanetVA Pty Ltd, the sponsor of this site,
    offers similar technology solutions to indepedent and online retailers at affordable
    price levels.

    - See more at: http://eyesmart.com.au/?option=com_c....3qY0UkrC.dpuf

  2. #2
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    Now the major players and you beloved Lux are now totally involved ..................................

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    Master OptiBoarder optical24/7's Avatar
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    Redhot Jumper what comes up is EVISION.com ........IS CLEARLY CONTACTS........................

    When you check on alexa.com for "glasses.com" surprise, what comes up is

    EVISION.com

    and when you check EVISION.com.........what comes up ??????

    ---------------->
    http://www.1800contacts.com/
    DRAPER, Utah – June 9, 2013 – Glasses.com, an online eyewear retailer, announces the launch of the glasses.com app featuring its 3Dfit technology. The glasses.com app for iPad is now available for free download in the iTunes app store. This revolutionary technology allows customers to accurately see how frames fit without ever stepping into a store. Shoppers can browse a growing inventory of brand-name glasses and sunglasses, share styles with friends and even buy frames all within the app.
    Blending Hollywood special effects with advanced computer modeling, the glasses.com app gives shoppers the ability to virtually try on hundreds of frames in less than a minute, making it easy and fun to discover the perfect look. Unique facial mapping software allows the app to produce a true-to-life 180° view of the user’s face showing how each pair fits in 3D and letting shoppers compare side-by-side images of each style. Because the technology places a 3D model of the glasses over a 3D rendering of the user’s face, shoppers can even reposition the glasses, tapping the screen to “slide” frames up and down the bridge of their nose just as they would in real life.
    Jonathan Coon, CEO of glasses.com’s parent company [COLOR=#00AFFD !important] 1-800 CONTACTS, Inc., acquired the glasses.com URL in 1999 but was waiting for technology to advance before developing an app. “The base technology has been there, but perfecting it to the point we have has taken significant time,” said Coon. “We didn’t want to just replicate the offline shopping experience—we wanted to improve it. Throughout the development stages, we’ve worked to create a tool that’s so true-to-life it’s not only fun, but actually useful in making a purchasing decision.”[/COLOR]
    Available for iPad with other platforms and web to follow, the glasses.com app houses a full shopping experience that allows you to try and buy with just a few swipes. For a second opinion, the app has a built-in “share” feature that allows users to send the images to family and friends and receive tallied voting results. After finding the perfect pair, orders can be placed directly from the app with free returns guaranteed.

    Luxottica believes that the investment in technology and the development of an
    accessible digital platform for the North American trade are crucial next steps in
    developing the market to its full potential.
    Last edited by Chris Ryser; 02-19-2014 at 03:05 PM.

  5. #5
    What's up? drk's Avatar
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    I think Wellpoint bought both of these awesome e-businesses, and unloaded them within three or four years. I wonder why?

    Who knows what Luxottica will do. Probably turn it into a winner, sadly.

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    Master OptiBoarder OptiBoard Bronze Supporter
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    And the rest of the worlds ECP's sit back and let the big guys roll over them once more. All in the name of ...OH ..we are professional and we need to see our clients, face-to face and we can not possibly ship or mail a pair of eyeglasses (that we made) to our client, because we did not adjust them to their face. Well, Dear Professional, when the well runs dry and you say...we should have...it will be too late. Technology is screaming ahead while we keep our heads buried in the sand. We all have the latest and greatest tech stuff, in our cars, our homes, our cell phone, our office equipment, our stero and TV's but refuse to see the great advantages of it when it comes to ...DARE I EVEN SAY THIS....selling eyeglasses on line.

    Next will come cell phone eye exam apps, with a complete print out and measurements, and we will say, "shame on you, you big corporate bully". When will we wake up and ask our professional assoc. to let us play on an even playing field. When it is to late.

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    Brilliant! Now they will tell their customers to go to LC for pd's and adjustments, at a discounted rate!

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    A couple of comments.

    When Wellpointe bought 1-800-contacts it was for the contact lens business. They also had a contact lens contract with Walmart which ended last year. Glasses.com was a deep discount online. Almost like a Coastal with an online contact lens business financing an online eyeglass business. Glasses.com did develop one of the better at virtual try-ons and claimed patent infringement against other onlines.

    I am not sure why Wellpointe dumped them. But now the Glasses.com website has done a 180. Lux put this thing on steroids. Now it is full of ray bans, oakleys, persols, and even some non-luxes like Tag and Spy. It is now competing with Essilor and Frames Direct. It would be interesting to compare the prices on glasses.com with what is charged at lenscrafters and what independents charge for the same frames.

    Lux also has the target optical online which it launched last year.

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    Master OptiBoarder OptiBoard Bronze Supporter
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    As per my above post.


    There are two standard systems for determining a prescription for eyeglasses to correct refractive errors such as nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism. One is to have the patient look through a large device called a phoropter, fitted with dozens of different lenses that can be swung into place in front of each eye in various combinations, while the patient tries to read a standard eye chart on the wall ahead. The other uses a more expensive system called an aberrometer that shines a laser into the eye and uses an array of tiny lenses to measure its characteristics, with no interaction from the patient.

    Now, a team at MIT's Media Lab has come up with a much quicker, simpler and cheaper way to get the same information — a method that is especially suitable for remote, developing-world locations that lack these expensive systems. Two billion people have refractive errors, and according to the World Health Organization, uncorrected refractive errors are the world's second-highest cause of blindness, affecting some 2 percent of the world's population; all these people are potential beneficiaries of the new system. The team is preparing to conduct clinical trials, but preliminary testing with about 20 people, and objective tests using camera lenses, have shown that it can achieve results comparable to the standard aberrometer test.

    In its simplest form, the test can be carried out using a small, plastic device clipped onto the front of a cell phone's screen. The patient looks into a small lens, and presses the phone's arrow keys until sets of parallel green and red lines just overlap. This is repeated eight times, with the lines at different angles, for each eye. The whole process takes less than two minutes, at which point software loaded onto the phone provides the prescription data. The device is described in a paper by MIT Media Lab Associate Professor Ramesh Raskar, Visiting Professor Manuel Oliveira, and Media Lab student Vitor Pamplona (lead author of the paper) and postdoctoral research associate Ankit Mohan, that will be presented in late July at the annual computer-graphics conference SIGGRAPH.

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    Blue Jumper The innovative process is called femtophotography ...................................

    The innovative process is called femtophotography, after the incredibly quick laser pulses involved; they're measured in quadrillionths of a second. Those bursts of light bounce around off ordinary doors or walls or floors -- mirrors need not apply -- and make their way back to a picosecond-accurate detector at the camera (picoseconds = trillionths of a second) that records the elapsed time and then does the math on how the light bursts traveled.
    The system runs through the drill multiple times in that blink of an eye, with the light bursts traveling several different routes to provide a more complete 3D image.
    Or to put it in a more mind-blowing perspective, the camera captures all that target object illumination at the equivalent of roughly 1 trillion frames per second. Much more detail is available at this FAQ on the Camera Culture site.

    http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57...round-corners/

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    When the big ships start turning you know a storm is coming...

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