Cute video. What do you see?
This is a video of a cute Japanese girl but I saw much more when I watched it.
I see:
- parts are staged to get different camera angles
- the child is having fun
- how the town is designed
- the low counter at the store making it easier for people who can’t reach higher such as the little girl or someone in a wheel chair
- lots of video editing
- planning to get the video
- a relationship between the child and the videographer
- USA commercialism in her clothing
- people watching the video, some such as me on the other side of the world who will probably always be strangers
- an impact doing this will have on the girl’s development
- the video being a wonderful gift to future generations
All of that went through my mind while I was watching it the first time. I didn’t watch the video more than once. I didn’t think about it afterwards. Those were all of my thoughts while watching the video. Of course I also saw how cute she was and the scenery.
How many different perspectives do you have on things you see, or hear?
3D Printer Brings Vision to the Poor
The same week that I found all the articles on 3D printers I found an amazing example that could dramatically improve life for billions of people in developing countries who cannot access, nor afford, prescription glasses.
Last weekend I went to get a new optical prescription so I could buy new contacts. The technician used fully automatic devices to check me for glaucoma and calculated my prescription. I had experienced the glaucoma device but the prescription device was new to me. I instantly knew how it worked just from seeing it. The machine reflects a pattern off your eye then adjusts lenses in the device until the reflected pattern matches the original. Incredibly, quick easy and cheap!
My mind raced through all the potential innovations stemming from this device. I came up with a long list which I’ll get to in a moment. What I am more excited about is an extremely innovative application of this same technique. In 2002 a student at MIT used a similar technique as part of a system to make glasses for the poor. This was exactly what I had thought of. This innovation went from an idea in 2002 to commercial usable device in 2006. That is amazing.
One of the reasons the idea was developed in such a short time was the use of a 3D printer to create a prototype. But probably even more important was it solved a previously impossible problem and opened up a gigantic market. There are 1 billion people who need inexpensive glasses. 
There are two obstacles to providing eye glasses to people in developing countries. Read more
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