Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness worldwide, but cataract-test cameras are only available in doctors’ and opticians’ offices in developed parts of the world.
Now, for everyone else, MIT researchers have created a clip-on for smartphones. It can be built from off-the-shelf components. Test subjects look through an eyepiece and press a button when the lines they see look blurry. That provides a map of where vision is clouded and produces a cataract diagnosis within minutes.
The device, called Catra, is slated for use in third-world countries but maybe they should use it here too: During testing the thing diagnosed undetected cataracts in one subject who had gotten a clean bill of ocular health from an eye exam just a few months earlier.
Read more at CNET.
