Adlens Launches New Smart Eyewear and Four Locations in the Bronx

"U.K.-based Adlens introduced at CE week Wednesday in New York City its FOCUSS series of smart eyewear – wearer-adjustable prescription glasses that are being made available at select eyewear specialists in America," reports Dealerscope. "The glasses with their frames will be priced at $999 – comparable to high-level prescription progressive eyewear priced at around $1,500, said Dr. Graeme E. Mackenzie, the company’s director of regulatory and industry affairs. He said the FOCUSS technology provides a full field of vision with no peripheral vision distortion, unlike traditional progressive lenses." Read more.

A few weeks earlier, AdlensFocuss launched in the New York City market at Metro Optics Eyewear’s four Bronx eye care practices – giving eye doctors a new option for their presbyopic patients beyond lined bi-or tri-focal or progressive lenses. AdlensFocuss provides a single-vision viewing experience, with four times the viewing area of a no-line bifocal. Wearers switch between their distance, intermediate, and reading prescriptions by clicking the small hidden dial on the inside of the frame’s temple.Read more.

Epson and Vuzix Press Ahead with Smart Eyewear

Aside from Intel purchasing smart eyewear company Recon, there's more news on the smart eyewear front.

According to ReadWrite, "Epson has unveiled a significant upgrade to its Moverio smart eyewear device with the BT-2000...[T]he BT-2000 is focused on business use, offering a variety of augmented-reality apps for professional users. The integrated camera gets a bump to 5 megapixels and now includes 3D depth sensing, while its AR capabilities are boosted further with the addition of an inertial measurement unit (IMU) for more-accurate head tracking. The display has been brightened up and the unit now supports voice control even without an active Wi-Fi connection. That all should mean a clearer display for the wearer and more accurate AR capabilities. The software running on the BT-2000 eyewear is based on Android, and Epson says the device is going on sale in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Japan and the U.S. this fall." Read more.

Eyeglass World has launched the first retail collection of prescription lenses for the Vuzix M100 Smart Glasses and other smart glasses technologies, says a press release from Vuzix. The debut coincides with Eyeglass World's retail expansion into California. Eyeglass World celebrated the grand opening of a Vista, California location on Friday, June 19, 2015, which is the first of eight Eyeglass World stores planned for the San Diego area by June 2016. Read more.

Intel Buys Smart Eyewear Company, Recon

"Last week Intel announced the acquisition of Recon Instruments, a Canadian company that sell smart glasses dedicated to sport people, and already raised funds from Intel Capital in September 2013," reports GPS Business News. "In total the company raised $17 million over three rounds and the acquisition is said to be upwards of $175 million.'This acquisition gives Intel a talented, experienced wearable computing team that will help us expand the market for head mounted display products and technologies,' wrote Josh Walden, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s New Technology Group." Read more.

Intel Buys Swiss Smart Eyewear Startup

“Just as Google has stepped back from making networked eyewear, Intel is stepping into the gap with the purchase of Swiss startup Composyt Light Labs for an undisclosed amount,” according to a post on ZDNET. “A spinoff of the famous Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, known as the EPFL), the company creates smart glass technology that can work with any type of eyewear. For its initial designs, the startup uses an ultra-miniature laser projector (developed by another EPFL start-up Lemoptix) built into the frame of the glasses. This projects images onto a transparent lens, which has a holographic film coating that reflects the information towards the eye.” Read more.

Intel Makes Two Smart-Eyewear Deals with Luxottica and Vuzix

"Intel's continuing to push aggressively into the world of wearables. On Wednesday it signed a deal with Luxottica Group to develop smart eyewear in time for a product launch next year," reports PC World. "According to Intel's press release, the partnership will 'deliver smart, fashion-forward products that are meaningful and desirable to consumers.'" Read more.

Meanwhile Vuzix Corp. announced that Intel Corporation has made a $24.8 million investment into the Vuzix Corp., according to a Vuzix press release on Yahoo! Finance Canada. Vuzix will use Intel's investment for general working capital to accelerate the introduction of its next generation fashion-based wearable display products. Read more.

Sony Proposes Its Smart Eyeglasses

"Almost everybody who’s capable of producing tech eyewear is coming after Google Glass in a big way, and Japanese consumer electronics outfit Sony isn’t one to get left behind," according to Android Community. "It’s releasing the Sony SmartEyeglass (we guess people are running out of novel names for tech eyewear) to compete in this segment, although it doesn’t have software of its own as of now and is relying on third party developers to work with their SDK." Read more.

Sony's Smart Specs to Give Google Glass Competition

"Google might not realize it, but Project Glass isn't alone in the patent race these days," according to an Engadget post. "Sony has quietly applied for a patent on a familiar-looking smart glasses system whose advantage over Mountain View would be an emphasis on things in twos. Eyepieces are the most obvious, but Sony is also keen on sharing data between two friends: transmitters on a pair of glasses would send personal info through a likely very uncomfortable glance at someone else with the same eyewear." Read more.