Reading Ophthalmoscopes with an iPhone 4

Welch Allyn has created an app that allows health care providers to capture, store, send, and retrieve images from its PanOptic ophthalmoscope. Called the iExaminer, the app, available at the Apple App Store, works with an iPhone 4 or 4S camera. The company's ophthalmoscope generates a viewing area of the fundus and retinal nerve in an undilated pupil that is reportedly 5 times larger than that of a traditional ophthalmoscope and increases magnification by 26 percent. The app aligns the optical access of the ophthalmoscope to the visual axis of the smartphone or the camera. Read more.

New iPhone/iPad Apps to Try On and Locate Eyewear

"Jobson Internet Solutions (JIS), a leading healthcare internet marketing and e-business consulting group, announced the debut of EyeTrends, their new mobile application. EyeTrends is an iPhone and iPad mobile application used to search, virtually try-on, and geo-locate different eyeglass and sunglass styles featuring tens of thousands of current eyewear styles from top designer brands." That's the post on VisionMonday. "The app offers manufacturer coupons, rebates and incentives that allow consumers to save big on their next eyewear purchase." Read more.

 Meanwhile FGX International released the Foster Grant Pocket Mirror application available for iPhone, says a post on About.com. "Foster Grant goes mobile with its Pocket Mirror app, its first mobile application. The application allows users to check out how they look 'behind those Foster Grants.' Visual effects like black and white, sepia, or framing can be applied to the pictures before they are stored, shared, or uploaded to the Foster Grant Facebook page." Read more.

MIT Develops Inexpensive Cataract Detector

"Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working on an inexpensive way to use smartphones to quickly detect early-stage cataracts, the clouding of the eye lens that is the leading cause of blindness worldwide," according to a post on CNet. Read more.