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A trial that the government had placed that gives two pairs of glasses to school children to improve reading and writing has now been expanded to reach nearly 10,000 more children across 225 schools. Those children that are in need of glasses will receive one pair for home and one for school, allowing them to concentrate in the classroom and improve their literacy skills. The data that was formerly presented by the government had shown that 30% pupils who needed glasses had not been to an optician, alongside disadvantaged children being less likely to get, or wear, the glasses they needed. This project was developed by the Centre for Applied Education Research a partnership created by Bradford Opportunity Area to remove health barriers to learning. It will now be available for pupils in Doncaster, Derby, Durham, Norwich and Breckland, and North Yorkshire Coast.

A newly developed app called CRADLE searches for abnormal reflections from the retina called leukocoria or “white eye,” a major symptom of retinoblastoma, as well as other common eye disorders. Studies have suggested that the app is an effective tool to enhance clinical leukocoria screenings, permitting parents to screen their children more often. Research also determined the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of the prototype by analysing more than 50,000 photographs of children taken before their diagnosis. The patients that were diagnosed with eye disorders, the app was able to detect leukocoria for 80% of the children. The CRADLE app seems to be more effective simply by the scope and frequency of its sample sizes: everyday family photos. Taking into account the number of photos taken by family and friends, there is a variety of opportunities for light to reflect off the ocular lesions regardless of its location in the eye.

Former Great British Bake-Off presenter Sue Perkins has urged the public to visit an optometrist on the BBC’s Morning Live during National Eye Health Week (NEHW). Perkins has told viewers that she ‘never really understood how many other serious conditions can be spotted when you have an eye test.’ She explained that her father’s brain tumour had been diagnosed when visiting an optician. ‘It’s alerted me to the fact that a simple trip can diagnose things really early,’ she said, ‘most of the time it won’t be anything serious, but with glaucoma, hypertension and diabetes early interventions can be made and really great outcomes can be achieved.’ She has urged people to “take care of their eyes” and not to ignore blurred vision and “For those worried about getting their eyes checked, the new technology feels like nothing more than a sigh over the eyeball”.

Popular social media giants Facebook has launched its smart glasses in collaboration with Essilor Luxottica’s Ray-Ban brand. Facebook announced that Ray-Ban Stories were smart glasses that would allow wearers to capture photos and videos, listen to music, make phone calls, and share updates to social media. The price has been set at $299 and the frames have been made available in 20 different styles online and in select retail locations. Facebook and Ray-Ban have also indicated in interviews that it’s possible that the companies could eventually work together on AR versions of the glasses. They also said the partnership would expand to additional Ray-Ban styles and offerings from other Luxottica brands.

OcuBlink has announced the first synthetic eyeball for augmented and virtual reality authentication applications. The most recent models have nearly identical optical properties as human eyes, including mirroring the complexity of how visible and infrared light reflects through the pupil and across the limbus. The design, engineering and manufacturing process results in an optically clear, standardized and stable eyeball that enables testing consistency. The product is being piloted by AdHawk Microsystems to calibrate eye tracking in advanced AR/VR systems for medical and consumer electronics applications. AdHawk produces custom, wafer-scale silicon devices to accelerate the proliferation of eye tracking in a broad range of devices. Its MEMS-based eye tracker captures subtle changes in eye movement dynamics, enabling effortless, ultra-low-latency control of wearable devices while revealing people’s interests, emotional state and brain health.

Approximately 1.2 billion people worldwide are currently affected by presbyopia which starts to affect one’s near vision around the age of 45. As we age, the crystalline lenses in our eyes stiffen and lose the elasticity which is required to focus on nearby objects and thus due to presbyopia people struggle to view close objects in sharp focus. However, scientists have created a prototype of auto-focusing eyeglasses which automatically focus on where the wearer is looking. The prototype eyeglasses (named ‘Autofocals’) uses eye tracking technology and depth sensor data which can process the information and help to view close objects with sharp focus more accurately and efficiently than traditional eyeglasses This can help correct presbyopia and offer a more efficient and precise solution than traditional glasses and will play an important role in near vision correction in the future.

There are many wearable devices that have been created providing medical advances. One example are contact lenses that are proficient in influencing the physiological information of the eye, the number of tears, and intraocular pressure, which allows the point-of-care (POC) diagnosis of eye diseases. However, researchers have designed a new “smart” contact lens that has the ability to change colour (alternating from red to green to blue). It can immediately report the real-time changes in moisture and pressure that are vital signs for xerophthalmia and glaucoma diagnosis by altering colours. The new “smart” contact lens possesses great promise for instrument-free ophthalmic health monitoring and help reduce the high risk of eye disease.

Researchers at Hong Kong University have constructed the world’s first 3D spherical artificial eye that mirrors photoreceptors with nanowire light sensors creating hope to patients with visual impairment. The artificial eye imitates the structure of the human eye and may offer clearer vision in the future with additional functions. For example: the capability to distinguish infrared radiation and night vision. Nanowires have greater density than photoreceptors in the human retina, which means the artificial retina can obtain more data and possibly achieve a greater image resolution than the human retina. In the future, these nanowire light sensors may possibly be directly linked to visually impaired patients’ nerves. The human eye use bundles of optic nerve fibres routed through the retina using a pore to reach the brain, which generates a blind spot in human vision. Light sensors, scattered across the retina feed signals through their own liquid-metal wire, eliminating the blind spot, as they don’t have to route through a single location.

A new face mask has been developed that can detect Covid-19 infections from an individual’s breath in roughly 90 minutes. This works when the mask has been worn for a suitable time, in which the wearer will then press a button that penetrates a small bag filled with water which immediately will be drained through the sample collection pad, forcing any viral particles into the sensor for analysis. The face masks are implanted with small, disposable sensors inside of the mask that can distinguish viral particles in the breath of the individual wearing the mask. The sensors may possibly be modified to identify additional infections as they can be fitted on other face masks and other garments such as lab coats, presenting a new approach to monitor exposure to a variety of pathogens or other threats particularly in a health care environment.

Kellogg’s has designed a new way to find information on its cereal boxes which is intended to support individuals who have difficulty seeing. The technology that makes all this possible is called NaviLens and is available to download on both the Apple and Play store. It is based on scanning codes by using your smartphone camera which allows information to be read aloud in audio form to customers. For example ingredients and allergens. The code is imprinted on a black background using high contrasted colours for recognition even by the visually impaired. An advantage of this new technology is that people don’t need to know precisely where the code is but instead, can be detected by smartphone cameras from up to 3 meters. In 2020, Kellogg’s commenced a trial in partnership with Co-op, on Kellogg’s Coco Pops boxes. According to the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), it revealed that 97% of the participants would like to see more accessibility features available on grocery packaging in the future. Due to this successful trial, Kellogg’s will be placing unique codes on all it’s cereal boxes by 2022.