Hasta La Ideas

I was lucky enough to attend one of the TEDx Boston 2011 Adventures last Thursday evening at the MIT Media Lab hosted by Associate Professor Ramesh Raskar. Raskar is in charge of the Camera Culture Group, one of the Media Lab’s twenty-six component labs. We began with an introduction to the various projects the Camera Culture Group is involved in.

NETRA

NETRA is an extremely inexpensive solution to a very expensive problem. A plastic column with an eyepiece is attached on top of a smartphone and is used to determine the user’s required eyeglass prescription. A new version can now also detect cataracts. Considering that current medical equipment on the market cost in the thousands of dollars, a plastic add-on to a smartphone that costs two dollars is a godsend.

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