The eyes have it – EyeJets foresees a screenless future

Within the twenty first century, it’s laborious to recollect a time earlier than screens, not to mention think about a future with out them. Enter EyeJets, an Israeli startup leveraging revolutionary expertise in the direction of a screenless world.

After an extended and distinguished profession within the Israel’s Air Drive and the protection trade, Edu Strul was consulting for IAI (Israel Aerospace Industries) the place he had the chance to work with optics skilled Dr. Joshua Gur. Upon his retirement, Gur shared a few of his concepts with Strul and requested if he could be taken with forming a startup collectively. This result in the founding in 2017 of EyeJets, whose identify is a mix of the phrase “eye”, the primary initials of the the names of the 2 co-founders (“j” and “e”), and ‘t’ and ‘s’ is for ‘monitoring programs’. Strul serves as CEO, Gur is CTO, and Dr. Isaac Lipshitz, a veteran eye physician who subsequently joined the group, serves as Chief Medical Officer.

How did your organization begin?

“At first EyeJets was offered as a navy utility which concerned correct route of your pupil,” Strul defined to CTech in an interview. “Then we thought that possibly there are purposes for our expertise exterior the navy as properly, on the planet of good glasses.”

However good glasses exist already.

“You might be right. There are loads of large corporations that attempted glasses, however you don’t actually see the product as we speak. Individuals are not strolling round carrying this expertise. Our expertise, nevertheless, is totally completely different.”

“As a substitute of projecting the digital knowledge out of your pc or smartphone onto your glasses’ lenses, we venture it straight into your eye’s retina. This can be a completely different idea which was not invented by us, it’s already identified.”

So what makes your expertise completely different?

“Usually, if I venture knowledge straight into your retina, you received’t be capable of see it properly as a result of your eye is consistently transferring. What we developed is eye monitoring expertise which follows your pupil, it strikes as your eye strikes. That signifies that with our expertise the image, photos, or film, no matter is being projected, will all the time be within the middle of your visual view. That is our main differentiator.”

How have you learnt it’s distinctive?

“Three years in the past we utilized for a patent within the U.S. on this crowded area which options a whole lot, if not hundreds, of main corporations, however one thing very uncommon occurred. We wrote 39 claims and all of them had been permitted with no exclusions, as is. That is how I do know our expertise is exclusive.”

“From the very starting, we have now been in touch with the main eyeglass firm who instructed us that our expertise have to be manufactured with the nicest glasses in the marketplace – and we agree. So along with the projection and the attention monitoring, we wish our expertise to be constructed into good eyeglasses which you can put on as you stroll on the road and go about your day. With different current merchandise, together with one of the best AR glasses, you have to be sitting all the way down to see no matter is being projected in your glasses. With EyeJets, it can nearly be like common glasses which you can put on all over the place and anyplace, even on the go.”

Do you consider your expertise will complement screens or utterly change them?

“We’re working in the direction of being screenless. There shall be no screens, however I’m dividing it into two phases. The primary stage, which I defined earlier than, is projection with eye monitoring. We try to get this expertise to market shortly, which we name “EyeVis1”. This expertise will finally change your TV display screen and pc display screen, however you’ll nonetheless want a smartphone, as a result of your cell phone has an excellent processor inbuilt and that has loads of purposes. At the moment we have now a mannequin for demonstration which works and proves the expertise.

“However, the large concept, the subsequent product, the second part which can take extra time, is to utterly change the smartphone. The extra sophisticated half entails if you wish to sort one thing. So we additionally personal the patent on a digital keyboard. That signifies that should you get an e mail or a WhatsApp message and also you need to reply to it instantly whereas carrying our glasses, you will note the keyboard and you’ll sort along with your fingers within the air. Ultimately, in a couple of years down the highway from now, there shall be no smartphones, solely glasses.

“We understand that as a small firm we can not beat the large corporations on the market like Google, Fb-Meta, and so forth., however we, with our distinctive expertise, hope to accomplice with them. Because the outdated saying goes, ‘should you can’t beat them, be part of them’ – and we hope to hitch them. One of many Massive 5 or FAANG (Fb, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google) corporations has already been in intensive talks with us over the past couple of months and so they had been very impressed with our expertise and we have now a signed an NDA between us, so we hope we can have an enormous announcement relating to that quickly, by the top of this 12 months.”

You might be speaking about projecting lasers into peoples’ retinas, is it protected?

“Sure, that’s precisely what we’re doing. After we first established the corporate, again when it was strictly for the navy, that was the very first query requested, ‘Is it protected?’

“Initially, there are established requirements, which I’m very acquainted with, based mostly on a big American research, for projection lasers. Projecting into the retina has already been utilized in navy and medical purposes, and we’re considerably beneath the variety of the figures of that normal, so sure, it’s protected.”

What about medical purposes?

“For the world of drugs it’s superb. As I stated earlier than, our expertise does eye monitoring. We’re repeatedly scanning the retina. What do we have now within the retina? Blood vessels. The retina is the one place in our physique the place our blood vessels are uncovered, the place you may see them. There are lots of ailments, reminiscent of diabetes, glaucoma, and so forth. that are usually examined with blood checks, however it’s identified that when somebody is sick there’s a change within the blood vessels. So, as an alternative of ready until somebody feels ailing, our expertise acts as an early analysis. So, whenever you put on our particular glasses for say 1 or 2 hours a day, because it accumulates knowledge, it gives an early analysis and tells you it’s time to go see your physician.

“However, having stated that, we’re nonetheless a small firm and we have to focus, so proper now we’re not but specializing in the medical aspect, however hopefully sooner or later we are going to.”

“We’ve obtained monetary help within the type of grants from the Israel Innovation Authority, twice. As well as, in 2021 the corporate raised funds in a crowdfunding course of by way of the Piplebiz platform we’re within the means of doing that once more through that very same platform. We’re additionally now making ready for the most important AR/VR conference subsequent month in Portugal the place we shall be presenting our expertise to the world for the primary time and assembly with worldwide traders and shortly after this convention we intend to announce our Collection A funding spherical.”