Many of these symptoms can be problems with your eyes. Spending hours a day fixed on a screen or book is damaging to our eyes and it is important to recognize the possibility that you may have to get some help from your eye doctor.

Regular Headaches

People can get headaches from a number of things. But if these headaches happen on a regular basis, that should raise some concern. A headache that occurs regularly could mean your eyes have to strain so much during the day that they start to cause you pain. Usually this can happen from a number of sources but usually is the direct result of staring at a screen for too long.

Dry or Irritated Eyes

Have you ever been so involved in something you were doing that you forgot to blink? Many activities students are involved in cause them to get dry, itchy eyes. From playing soccer and rolling around in the grass, to a rock concert with lights everywhere, a student’s eyes take a beating and must be properly taken care of. Most students suffer from a lack of sleep and combined with the prolonged amount of use, your eyes can experience a lot of pain.

Neck Pain

Frequently students with eye problems experience neck and back pain. The strain on your eyes can cause reduced blood circulation and eventually becomes headaches or neck and back pain. This comes from a variety of sources, from poor lighting conditions to prolonged use of the eyes. The neck balances your head and is very sensitive to even the smallest amount of tenseness.

Blurriness

Blurry vision is something that happens with age. If it is something we experience on a day-to-day basis, you should see your eye doctor immediately. This may be a result of stress and can become a big problem if not dealt with properly. This may be a result from fatigue, so make sure you get enough rest.

These also may be signs of CVS, or Computer Vision Syndrome. Spending hours a day on your computer is damaging to your eyes. It happens because your eyes are focused on the computer screen for a large amount of time. Around 90% of people who spend more than three hours a day in front of the computer are affected by CVS.

These signs may mean you need to visit a doctor and get a pair of glasses. Most of the time, students have glasses for close-range activities such as a lecture, homework, or reading in the library. These eyeglasses help relax your eyes when they are focusing on text for a long period of time.

Be aware of your eyes and try to limit your time in front of the screen. If you feel any of these symptoms, think about the possibility that you may need to visit your eye doctor. Our bodies have specific mechanisms to alert us of possible dangers and if we don’t address these concerns there may become a permanent problem. Sometimes you may not have the time for a doctors appointment or it may not seem that important and you put it off until later. But if left untreated, some symptoms might develop into cataracts, glaucoma, or even blindness.

Don’t treat these warning signs lightly. If you are experiencing anything listed above or something you think needs looking at, schedule an appointment today so you don’t have to worry about it later. Once you get treated you will see just how much it was worth it.

About the Author

Parker Boyack is a writer for MyCollegesandCareers.com. My Colleges and Careers helps people determine if an online education is right for them and helps them understand which online courses and online schools they can choose from to reach their goals.

Usher
Usher sported a pair of Ray Ban aviators on the red carpet. A pretty classic, casual look.

Vampire Weekend
Two of the foursome Vampire Weekend showed their specs, as well. A classic pair of Ray Ban wayfarers and a tortoise shell pair of “nerd” glasses completed the dudes’ looks.

Gaga
Lady Gaga kept with her tradition of wearing multiple outfits throughout the evening. Her last look was completed with a pair of Marc by Marc Jacobs sunglasses. The singer took home the award for best pop album of the year.

Cee-Lo
One of the biggest surprises of the night was Cee-Lo Green’s costume. Inspired by Elton John’s costume when he guest starred on The Muppet Show, Green performed with Gwyneth Paltrow and backup muppet singers. On top of it all, he wore some really cool, large white-rimmed shades.

Our only conclusion is that the limelight must be really bright because sunglasses were in abundance. Regardless, we loved seeing such fashionable glasses and one of the biggest winners seemed to be Ray Ban, who provided the sunglasses and glasses for the majority of the musicians.

Online guides will help you find the best deals. You may not have otherwise thought to look to your credit card for Black Friday deals (I know I didn’t), but many provide savings and extra rewards points for shopping at specific retailers on Black Friday. It’s also recommended to join retailers’ mailing lists, Facebook groups and regularly check Twitter, because they often send promotions to their loyal customers.

Once you have an idea of how to shop and find the best deals, you need to know what you want, for there’s little time to deliberate in a Black Friday crowd. Luckily, Gizmodo has compiled two (1,2)  huge lists of some of the best gadgety Black Friday deals. Among the best deals on the lists: laptops galore, Wii and Kinect, the Amazon Kindle and more.

And, if you’re in the market for glasses, many stores and online retailers have deals for Black Friday online ordering or in-store purchasing. (Though it should be noted that Just Eyewear, regardless of other sites’ sales, has some of the best prices available.)

Whether you’re in the market for electronics, toys, clothes or eyewear, there’s a sale out there for you. Just remember to search for coupons and extra promotions, stay calm, and stay safe.

Most of all, Happy Thanksgiving!

More photos here and here.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGm_LPAFRlg

Virtual Mirror
Trying on glasses is time consuming. Aside from the commute to the different eyewear shops, it’s sometimes hard to objectively see what looks good and what doesn’t (pressure from sales staff doesn’t help this matter). And then there’s online eyewear shops. Buying glasses online is often cheaper than buying them from store retailers, however you usually have to sacrifice the luxury of seeing firsthand how the glasses look on you. Luckily, many online retailers provide helpful fitting charts and basic guidelines for how to choose a frame. Better yet, there are now apps in the work that will let you “try on” different pairs on your phone.

Augmented Reality Becomes Reality
Augmented Reality is fundamentally based in future possibilities; how can we enhance the way we see the world using portable technology? What needs can be met faster and more thoroughly? Augmented Reality on your mobile will allow you to interact with your games, periodicals, and possessions by inputting their information into the phone via a photo or video and then your phone brings you more gaming options, additional information, and additional products you might be interested in. Augmented reality is also featured in the eye glasses try-on app which blends the image on the phone or computer with your image.

Such technology obviously has many avenues yet to be explored. The iLens concept is one of the most futuristic, mind-blowing -yet conceivable- ideas. The iLens would essentially put all of the augmented reality features of a smart phone on to a contact lens that you’d wear around daily. You could look at someone and see their Facebook profile, look at maps, yellow pages, email and more all in front of you with your actual, physical world as the desktop. This, of course, raises many ethical and philosophical questions as it would alter life in such a radical way that’s never been done before.

In Conclusion
This technology, despite at times being conceptually frightening, can be and is used for good. Making eye exams more accessible, even if unofficial right now, may give millions of children with undetected eye problems an easy test and an easy solution. Eye exams will be more portable, even for doctors, who can reach those in the inner cities and the plains of Africa. Medical professionals are already preferring iPads and apps to paper records, which are subject to damage and degradation with time. The apple of your eye may be branded by Apple, but you’ll enjoy the at-home convenience of eye care on your phone, in your glasses, and at your fingers.

Atticus Finch from the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird starring dreamboat Gregory Peck. Finch, a lawyer, defends a black man in the South against false accusations and prejudice in the legal system.
X-Men’s Scott Summers, aka Cyclops, also makes the list for his optic-blast. Cyclops had a hard time fitting in as a youth considering he couldn’t open his eyes without completely destroying all around him. Luckily for him, Xavier was able to fashion some super tech-y ruby quartz specs and Cyclops went on to be not only the leader of the X-Men, but one of the strongest as well.
And topping the list is McLovin from Superbad for his strength of character and fake I.D. shenanigans. Without McLovin, Fogell would’ve merely been Fogell and Superbad would’ve been much less super.

For the full list, visit On the Box here. It’s a great list, to be true, but there is one person missing…
Anyone else think Geordi La Forge is the epitome of hero?

After not changing much at all since the 19th century, the process of vision correction using eyeglasses has been progressing in leaps and bounds in recent years. Check out these exciting concepts, available very soon or even right now!

1. No More Reading Glasses or Bifocals

Until now, an inevitable and dreaded rite of passage into middle age has been the need for reading glasses, or even worse, bifocals. Trufocals or Superfocus glasses aim to change the need for multiple glasses and lenses by use of fluid-filled lenses behind the usual corrective lenses. The extra lens is adjustable by means of a slider on the nose piece, allowing the user to sharpen focus for different focusing distances.

When available: Now, but be prepared to pay significant money–the Superfocus glasses retail for $895.

2. Hi-definition eyeglasses

Recent computer technology allows far more customized lens making than formerly, creating a lens that is adapted not only for the overall vision correction but individually designed for the contours of your particular eye. The same wavefront computer mapping technology used to map the eye for LASIK surgery is used to create the lenses.

When available: Now, at a cost of 25 – 30% more per lens than traditional eyeglasses.

3. Inexpensive Vision Correction for the Developing World

Josh Strickland is a physicist by education, but since 1985 has worked on the problem of having too many people needing glasses in the developing world, and too few optometrists. His solution: glasses with DIY adjustment. The user simply puts on the glasses and turns a knob on each lens until he or she sees clearly. Then the adjustment is locked in using a screwdriver.

When available: About 30,000 in use in pilot programs; aim is 1 billion by 2020.

4. Night Vision Glasses

With the same thin film technology used in flat screen TVs, scientists have developed a light, inexpensive filter that can convert ultraviolet to visible light. This would be useful not only in eyeglasses but also on cell phone cameras and even car windshields.

When available: Technology exists but still in the laboratory stage.

5. Glasses with OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) Technology for Data Display

How would you like to be able to access computer data, communications, maps and more in a hands free display right in front of your eyes? Students at a technical institute in Germany are working on a system to do just that. It would include an eye tracking system that would allow the user to operate menus using eye movement.

When available: In early lab development stage but looks promising.

Tracy Hall writes and blogs hundreds of articles published online and in print, covering everything from technology to Health to Education, entertainment and more. Phoenix Kiosk, a kiosk technology provider, custom builds Kiosks to suit your needs.

It’s true, a simple eye exam, in addition to the many other features of smart phones, will soon be available for your DROID phone and others. Those at the MIT Media Lab have been working on technology that will allow your phone to recreate the exam optometrists administer for a fraction of the cost. The NETRA (Near Eye Tool for Refractive Assessment) system combines software for a smart phone with a small eyepiece and can produce a prescription with precision near what an optometrist can do in her office. NETRA and the PerfectSight project aim at bringing eye care to millions who now suffer poor eyesight and risk eventually going blind due to lack of corrective lenses. But the benefits are not limited to developing countries. It will soon be possible to have an eye exam anywhere for so much less money and hassle. It will make so many “blind” see.

Here’s how it works

The NETRA optometry solution is simple to use. The patient looks through the eyepiece and adjusts two parallel lines on the screen with the phone’s arrow keys until the lines lay one directly on top of the other, then the patient repeats the exercise eight times. The process takes under two minutes to complete. NETRA is completely unique in that it does not use a cell phone camera and is not based on eye reading charts found in the optometrist’s office.

Why it works

The way MIT puts it,

The micro-lens in the front of the LCD essentially creates a 4D display. A traditional 3D display presents a slightly different view to a person’s left eye and their right eye. With NETRA, we present different views through different parts of the same eye.

For those with perfect sight, the parallel lines “overlap perfectly.” Those who are near-sighted or far-sighted will need to adjust the lines and “the number of tweaks it takes for them to hit that ideal alignment [revealing] the correction they need to focus clearly.” Using alignment instead of “blur estimation” makes the estimation of refractive error, or the measure of how far away from 20/20 a prescription is, possible and accurate on a phone. The evolution of LCD screens available on smart phones makes NETRA technology more accurate as well.

As for the eyepiece, it costs less than $2.00 USD using “laser-cut, hand-assembled parts.” The aim of the PerfectSight project is that when the eyepiece is mass-produced, it will cost only a few cents to reproduce, which will make it more accessible worldwide.

Implications

The MIT Media Lab provides alarming statistics that justify the necessity for NETRA technology. According to MIT,

More than 2 billion people worldwide have refractive error. Very few have access to quality eye-care because existing solutions require a trained optometrist or expensive equipment. This impacts the developing world in a significant way:

-517 million have uncorrected near-vision impairment affecting daily livelihood

-153 million have uncorrected far-vision impairment (affecting 2% of the world population)

-Uncorrected Refractive Errors (URE) are the 2^nd leading cause of blindness globally. 87% of those affected live in the developing world. (WHO definition of blindness: vision worse that 3/60 in the better eye.)

In the US:

-Undetected vision problems are the number one childhood handicap (AOA)

-An estimated 10 million children suffer from undetected vision problems. (NPTA)

-60% of students identified as “problem learners” have undetected vision problems. (AOA)

Billions of people depend on NETRA technology for sight. NETRA’s affordability and portability make it ideal for administering in developing countries and even for schools in the U.S. where millions of children suffer from “undetected vision problems.”

Future

Once NETRA is ready, after field tests in different parts of the world, a product will eventually be launched. While NETRA is not yet on the market, and while it does not replace an optometrist or issue prescriptions, the technology is here. The concept has been made real. What’s more important is how NETRA will evolve. It is completely conceivable that in the future optometrists may not need their expensive equipment. Billions worldwide will have perfect vision and, as a result, better lives.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR6wMlnmc68

Source: MIT Media Lab via Android and Me

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypd5txtGdGw

The BBC show Horizon recently aired an episode entitled “Is Seeing Believing?” that researched the various tricks our senses play on us, including the McGurk effect.

Part of what sets the McGurk effect apart from other optical illusions, and part of what makes it so interesting, is that prior knowledge of the illusion does not enable one to see through it; regardless of foreknowledge, the McGurk effect tricks the brain into hearing the sound it sees.