[Cass]

If someone's far-sighted, as many people above the age of forty are, they might be able to see the street perfectly well, but have trouble reading a GPS screen that's only fourty cm away from their face.

And speaking as one of the people whose vision defect can't be corrected by glasses, but only by uncomfortable contact lenses, there'd be immense value to me in a computer I can use without lenses - especially since reading on a screen is basically the only thing I need the damn things for while I'm at home. For someone whose work is mostly computer-based, you might be able to get away with taking your lenses out for the entire day and only wear them for the drive to work and back.

[danellis]

> they might be able to see the street perfectly well, but have trouble reading a GPS screen that's only fourty cm away from their face

So they would also not be able to see their speedometer, or their fuel guage...

This is a technological solution looking for problems that are far more conveniently solved by conventional means.

[Gracana]

A GPS screen is not a simple dial. Reading small text on a computer you interact with in your car is quite different from determining the orientation of a glowing pointer.

[vizeroth]

There's nothing convenient about corrective lenses, especially if you are far-sighted or need bifocals and are driving. This is also why the portion of the video that mentioned the GPS also mentioned the speedometer.

However, until it is universally installed in cars and easily adjusted for your personal needs when moving from car to car, I doubt many people will be throwing away their bi/tri-focals in favor of lenses for distance only.

[lemonad]

By conventional means, do you mean reading glasses? Observing people needing/using them, to me it seems like a hassle and definitely not a solution that most are satisfied with.

The video mentions both the GPS and speedometer as potential targets for this technology. Giving it some thought and being close to the age where I might benefit from this, it isn't such a bad idea after all.

[danellis]

Obviously I can't speak for other bespectacled folk, but I wouldn't call them a huge hassle. I put them on in the morning, and take them off at night. Once in a while I clean them. That's about the extent of my interaction with them.

(Although I'm short-sighted, so the arguments above don't apply to me anyway.)

[vizeroth]

While I've seen my dad struggle with reading glasses (and now bifocals) after not needing to correct his vision for the first 40+ years of his life, I've had mostly the same experience you describe for the last 20 years (thanks to inheriting my vision problems from my mom's side). However, in the last couple of years I've started taking my glasses off if I am reading for long periods of time, because my distance vision is getting bad enough that the correction is making the closer text slightly more difficult to read than it is without the lenses. Eventually, this might also lead to needing bifocals myself, despite the fact that I have no problems reading very small text within arms-length without glasses.

Essentially, I'm getting close to doing the opposite of what most people do with reading glasses. For now, I do most minor reading tasks and my work with my glasses on, but for lengthy reading I take them off. Over time, I'm sure, I'll end up taking them off (or looking below my glasses) for almost every reading task, and eventually for work as well.

In the end, though, I don't think the technology will be likely to really solve the issue for me, except to correct a few displays for my corrected vision. I have to pin most of my hopes, at the moment, on improvements in surgery and eventually being able to afford the surgery.

[stan_rogers]

You're in for some future fun, then. I'm "Mr. Magoo" myopic, but in my late 40s the presbyopia fairy dropped in for an extended visit (and still hasn't indicated any desire to go home). So I have different needs for distance vision, for "conversational distance", for monitor distance and for the reading of tiny things, and there are gaps into which things may fall a well. Depending upon which field of range you're talking about (and which eye) I require correction somewhere between +3 and -6 dioptres. It is definitely a hassle, and quite unlike my carefree four-eyed youth.

[lemonad]

Same for me with regular glasses but reading glasses for far-sightedness is another issue as you can't put them on temporarily while driving.