TruFocals make steampunk glasses a functional, expensive reality
By Vlad Savov 
posted August 11th 2009 12:28PM
posted August 11th 2009 12:28PM
[Via CNET]
posted August 11th 2009 12:28PM
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The design was done by a major high tech design firm. I have a friend who has a pair. Look good on him. In fact, he tells me that people actually stop him in the street to ask him where he got the cool-looking glasses.
He also tells me that the you DON'T want auto-focus. He now focusses "automatically" whenever he wants to without even thinking about it . He says that doesn't want his glasses re-focussing on him all the time on their own.
thats pretty cool!
I guess you could "look like an idiot" with round glasses (like John Lennon?) Or you could just rock the style and explain how your glasses are awesome.
If you really need these, I think you'd look more silly trying to focus on stuff without them.
finally i can correspond via email. lol.
Man that top picture is confusing. If the SFO airport road in the distance is in focus, and you can also see the rim of the glasses (just millimeters in front of your eyes) clearly, why would everything in the middle be blurry? You would need to have simultaneously the best and worst eyes ever to have such a large (distance) and narrow (width) DOF.
Next up: Xray glasses ;)
That guy reading his e-mail needs to clean out his mailbox. He got a "mailbox full" warning. Tsk tsk.
Haha. Attractive colors? Maybe Harry Potter would like a pair.
Hey look, he took Professor Silver's invention, designed to cheaply combat the lack of access to optometrists or proper eye-wear in third-world countries and therefore give proper eyesight to everyone, and turned it into an expensive toy for the rich! What a brilliant capitalist he is!
I *really* like this concept, and the guy making the presentation really has the weight of experience on his words.
Museum Patrons!
Great technology, but the styling is horrible.
They'll need to offer all sorts of frame shapes and sizes for it to be a real seller. Very few will buy these simply because of the goofy styling and size.
Kurtin: Let the nerds develop the technology, but please bring in artists who can design industrially or cosmetically. Nerds can rarely do both, and unfortunately, you're not the exception. But good job on the technology!
Actually, the design was done by a one of the top high tech industrial design firms. Same one that has done a bunch of Apple products.
Since the lenses had to be round, they decided to try to make the glasses distinctive and "iconic". Each of us will have to decide for ourselves whether or not they succeeded.
My friend who has a pair said he was only buying them for work. But, they were so good he now wears them all the time.
I don't need them yet, but having seen them, I will buy them in a heartbeat when my presbyopia gets worse.
If they had the ShamWow guy I would buy a pair... LOL
"Not specialty glasses"
Seeing how the forward lens is a prescription-dependent lens and the overall design of the "focals" makes it a specialty eyeglassware. I can see this being applied not only to older people but also to those like me who have high-prescription lenses and over the age of 21. Comestically, it's pretty horrid to seen in a business environment wearing one of those. Hopefully version 2 is less of an eye sore and has a more reasonable price tag. $900 is simply overly expensive seeing how my prescription lenses + designer frame only costs me roughly $450 per pair.
If, as I surmise, once you've got these you won't ever need a "new prescription" again, the price looks pretty good.