Baseball’s greatest hitter, Ted Williams, could see the stitches on a just-pitched baseball from home plate. And with the right glasses, you could too. PixelOptics in Roanoke, Virginia, is developing SuperVision, eyewear that uses thousands of transparent liquid crystals to focus light far more precisely than the lenses on normal spectacles. The benefit? They can correct previously uncorrectable vision problems and adjust to lighting conditions on the fly. In January, the US Defense Department gave PixelOptics $3.5 million to design eyesight–enhancing goggles for soldiers. “We’re aiming for 20/8,” says Dwight Duston, the firm’s chief of R&D. Great! But he’s also the former head of research for the Star Wars missile defense program, so improved ability to actually hit anything is not guaranteed.
– Eilene Zimmerman
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