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Look out Google Glass. Look out all you want. These glasses from Japan look inward!

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The latest in wearable tech from Japan is an interesting contrast with Google Glass. Instead of scanning the world around you for useful data, ‘Jins Meme’ glasses look back only at yourself in an effort to collect useful data from your eyes and the areas around them, monitoring blinking, blink duration, vision shifts and more. The glasses are scheduled to go on sale next spring, with a public API coming in the fall. For Jins’ own explation of the concept, check out the promo video from Jins, which we’ve included above [1]. Update: Looks like Jins has made the YouTube video private suddenly. The data will sync with an accompanying smartphone app which lets you review important info at any time. Here’s an excerpt from the product’s webpage that nicely sums up the value proposition of the system: Based on changes in eye movement, JINS MEME is able to determine levels of mental and physical tiredness, which many people are unable to notice on their own. Recovery rates from tiredness in humans drop dramatically once a certain threshold is crossed. JINS MEME can detect and alert you to those levels before reaching that point, providing a new kind of management…

jins-meme

The latest in wearable tech from Japan is an interesting contrast with Google Glass. Instead of scanning the world around you for useful data, ‘Jins Meme’ glasses look back only at yourself in an effort to collect useful data from your eyes and the areas around them, monitoring blinking, blink duration, vision shifts and more. The glasses are scheduled to go on sale next spring, with a public API coming in the fall. For Jins’ own explation of the concept, check out the promo video from Jins, which we’ve included above [1]. Update: Looks like Jins has made the YouTube video private suddenly.

The data will sync with an accompanying smartphone app which lets you review important info at any time. Here’s an excerpt from the product’s webpage that nicely sums up the value proposition of the system:

Based on changes in eye movement, JINS MEME is able to determine levels of mental and physical tiredness, which many people are unable to notice on their own. Recovery rates from tiredness in humans drop dramatically once a certain threshold is crossed. JINS MEME can detect and alert you to those levels before reaching that point, providing a new kind of management tool for preventing tiredness from accumulating and for improving work efficiency.

In addition to electrooculography (or eye motion) sensors, the device will also be equipped with a three-axis accelerometer and a three-axis gyro sensor. So even when you are active or exercising, Jins Meme can help you monitor how many calories you’ve burned, or even feedback on your speed or posture.

Jins Meme will come in three styles, the classic ‘Wellington’ style, a half-rim style, and sunglasses. The glasses will certainly benefit from the added advantage of being rather stylish, and not making the wearer look like a tech-augmented cyborg.

On a somewhat related note, our readers will likely be familiar with Japan’s other notable glasses tech ‘Telepathy’ from the creator of Sekai Camera. As for Google Glass, it was recently discovered via code in its latest apk file that localized Japanese commands are soon on the way. So we can expect to see a battle for user eyeballs not to far in the future here in Japan! [2]

car-view
The Jins Meme app, alerting you while driving

  1. It’s an unlisted video that we’ve gone and embedded, so Jins could disable it at any time. Apologies in advance if they do. Update: And it looks like they have.  ↩

  2. Since these glasses serve an entirely different function than Google Glass, many would argue that Jins Meme is not a Glass competitor. But I would assert that since one cannot wear two pairs of glasses at once, that any pair of glasses is a competitor for any other pair of glasses.  ↩

Japanese company has a hit product with blue light filtering glasses

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Many of our readers probably work in front of a computer for long hours. Of course, doing so can be tough on your eyes if you don’t have much of a break. There’s lots of software out there that will help you adjust, including f.lux, an application that changes the color of your computer display according to the time of the day. And here in Japan, most people in the tech industry are likely familiar with Jins PC, protective glasses that filter bluelight. According to its website, Jins PC reduces the amount of bluelight you receive from your computer, mobile phone, and even your television display by as much as half. It was released back in September of 2011 and since then it has been a mega hit. It has posted a sales record of two million in just an year and a half after its release. The glasses are super light, weighing only 13 grams, with flexible frames providing a nice fit. At the time of release, Jins PC leveraged the power of bloggers to create some online buzz. This online strategy worked well, with Jins PC easily available for purchase through its website. In addition to providing customized…

JinsPC-blulight

Many of our readers probably work in front of a computer for long hours. Of course, doing so can be tough on your eyes if you don’t have much of a break. There’s lots of software out there that will help you adjust, including f.lux, an application that changes the color of your computer display according to the time of the day. And here in Japan, most people in the tech industry are likely familiar with Jins PC, protective glasses that filter bluelight.

According to its website, Jins PC reduces the amount of bluelight you receive from your computer, mobile phone, and even your television display by as much as half. It was released back in September of 2011 and since then it has been a mega hit. It has posted a sales record of two million in just an year and a half after its release. The glasses are super light, weighing only 13 grams, with flexible frames providing a nice fit.

At the time of release, Jins PC leveraged the power of bloggers to create some online buzz. This online strategy worked well, with Jins PC easily available for purchase through its website. In addition to providing customized glasses online, the company also sold pre-packaged glasses for only 3,990 yen (or about $40), available in 16 colors. The packaged glasses are available at offline stores as well.

Jins PC changed the pre-conception that glasses are just for vision correction, opening up an entirely new market. And as a result another well-known affordable glasses manufacturer, Zoff, entered the PC glasses market in March of 2012.Yahoo Japan has provided all of its employees with Jins PC and the glasses are often used in medical institutions too. The company behind Jins PC, Jins Co, has other lines of glasses such as Jins Moisture and Jins Kafun Cut (which roughly translates as Jins Pollen-proof).