The following words and images are sure to make you cry if you’re a lover of old records, so you may want to stop reading here. Hungarian designer Zachary Tipton of Tipton Eyeworks was looking for an interesting new material for his designer frames – and inspiration struck when he happened upon his father’s old collection of records.

After salvaging tons of old records from Budapest flea markets, Tipton and his company explored how to make them into frames. Vinyl is already very durable, but it is susceptible to heat. The team fused the vinyl with biodegradable cellulose-acetate, creating an extremely tough and long-lasting frame material.

The Vinylize collection of frames still has marks of the material’s former life: the vinyl still sports the grooves that once played music. A proprietary process has made the handmade frames into objects of beauty. The company hopes that they will also serve as reminders that with some creative thinking, nearly anything can be recycled or repurposed.

The post See the Music: Recycled Records Make Hip Vinyl Eyewear first appeared on Gajitz.

This is going to be a very poorly-sighted world eventually. A huge portion of our population has been staring at computer screens since childhood, meaning two things: eye damage will be incredibly widespread since done by even the looking at a screen for a minimal amount of time, as it adds up over several decades; and optometry will become a very lucrative field (pay attention, millennials). One concept aims to fight back against the oncoming myopia epidemic.

The i-Free is a clip-on digital lens meant to help “weak-sighted” people view their computer screen without glasses or contacts. The idea is quite simple: instead of wearing glasses or contacts, this lens would be auto-corrective in order to produce images to fit your corrective lens prescription. A touch control system would allow you to slide its corrective powers along a nearsighted/farsighted spectrum.

The execution, however, is what may raise questions. The necessary technology for the i-Free isn’t explained at all in the idea’s description renderings, so it may be an idea for a while. But it certainly would be nice to comfortably view your device’s screen while at the same time fighting blindness.

The post For Sore Eyes: Concept Allows Glasses-Free Computer Use first appeared on Gajitz.

Sitting up is hard. If you want to read or watch TV you do typically have to be upright, or lying at an incline at best. The Lazyglasses from ThinkGeek let you be as lazy as you want to be.

The Lazyglasses are glasses equipped with angled mirrors. The mirrors let you lie flat on your back as you watch TV, use your laptop or even read without getting the dreaded book-related arm strain.

Of course, there are non-lazy reasons for needing to stay flat on your back. Just after you’ve had surgery, or when you injure your back or neck, there’s nothing better (between painkiller-induced naps) than watching a movie without moving a muscle.

The post Sitting up too Difficult? Watch TV or Read While Lying Down first appeared on Gajitz.

Skyping and FaceTime have helped people communicate in whole new ways, but there are still some frontiers that have yet to be explored. PairASight is a technology that allows other people to see what you’re seeing in real time. Kind of like the glasses you sees spies or gamblers wearing in movies, the PairASight camera streams real-time video and two-way audio. The information goes to the user’s smartphone and can then be sent to anywhere in the world.

The technology has fascinating possibilities in fields like healthcare and auto repair. Want to know if that piece of your engine is supposed to look like that? Put on your PairASight glasses and connect with your mechanic to see if everything is cool or if you’ll be shelling out big money for repairs soon. We think it could even be used in education settings, with the teacher demonstrating correct techniques from the point of view the students will eventually see on their own.

The post PairASight Lets 2 People to Look Through One Set of Eyes first appeared on Gajitz.

There have been several news stories in the past few years about visually impaired humans teaching themselves to “see” using echolocation. This remarkable skill allows blind people to navigate using sound, a talent usually associated with animals like bats and dolphins. The Navigation Glasses for the Blind concept uses a somewhat similar concept to guide blind people away from obstacles.

The concept consists of a pair of glasses, an earpiece and a microphone. The glasses scan the area in front of, behind and to the sides of the wearer, looking for obstacles. The wearer receives feedback in the form of sound indicating which way to go. It seems sort of like an auditory version of a white cane.

The microphone is meant to give users a way to interact with the system, though it is not clear exactly how this works. Maybe users can ask the glasses whether it is safe to walk in a particular direction or request specifics on a certain obstacle. Sketchy details aside, the navigation glasses look like an effective and high-tech way to help visually impaired people make their way through the world safely.

The post Hearing the Way: High-Tech Navigation Glasses for the Blind first appeared on Gajitz.