Diet Goggles: Having eyes bigger than one’s stomach may cease to be a problem with the advent of
Diet Goggles. Developed by
Michitaka Hirose and a team of Tokyo University researchers, this eyewear uses augmented reality to fool the brain into thinking the stomach is full. An embedded camera sends images of the food the wearer is seeing to a computer, where scientists manipulate the size of the image. In an experiment during which participants wore the goggles while eating a pack of Oreos enlarged to appear 50% bigger, they consumed
nearly 10% fewer cookies. It’s an undeniably outlandish dieting tactic, though it's certainly less extreme than the
feeding tube diet.
Nike SPARQ Vapor Strobe Eyewear: Nike, backed by a team of
Duke University researchers, has developed
SPARQ Vapor Strobe Eyewear, a new training accessory that improves athletes’ reaction time by strengthening their vision skills. Users first have their performance assessed by a touchscreen device that formulates a recommended personal training routine. Then, when they put on the
SPARQ Eyewear, a custom-paced strobe light helps to improve their reaction time by switching between clear and blocked vision. This technique trains the brain to anticipate what's coming next when vision is obscured. The glasses are already being used by
collegiate and professional athletes with encouraging results.
O2Amp: Similar to how flushed skin indicates when someone is embarrassed,
2AI Labs’
O2Amp glasses amplify oxygenation that is typically too subtle for the naked eye to detect. The company is marketing the glasses to health care professionals as a tool that offers more refined patient diagnosis. For example, one filter would help doctors and nurses find veins quicker because the veins would appear to glow, while a second filter could detect internal trauma based on changes in skin color. A third filter could even help doctors better gauge patients’ emotional state of being—a feature that could ultimately prove useful in the customer service sector as well.
