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This App Trains You to See Farther

popularmechanics.com

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Re: This App Trains You to See Farther

#51

Post by fatrachet »

staunch wrote: post #38

> " When a major league baseball pitcher throws a 95-mph fastball, only about 400 milliseconds—the duration of a blink—pass before the ball rockets over the plate. And a batter gets less than half that time to decide whether to swing, and where. Baseball" Bah! That's not a knife. This is a knife: twitch FPS gaming. Quake Live at 250 FPS, refreshed at 144hz, with any day . Interestingly, my vision is extremely good. I…

This app specifically improves clear vision at farther distances, which seems far more useful on a daily basis, especially since a lot of people don't have good vision. Compared to twitch games that only improve reaction time in a very limited practically applicable scope. Considering the small amounts of time investment necessary to get good results, this app seems much more useful than playing quake.

Re: This App Trains You to See Farther

#52

Post by piyush_soni »

eliasmacpherson wrote: post #48
13throwaway wrote: post #5

Open source javascript clone. https://rawgithub.com/Fordi/eyegame/master/eyes.html

what are the instructions?

I pressed F11 to go to full screen. The message didn't change. Anyway, I saw a circle pointer and spots on the screen so I started clicking them one by one and they got 'cleaned'. Finally, I removed all the spots that I could see. Nothing happened after that. No message.

Re: This App Trains You to See Farther

#53

Post by babs474 »

cjensen wrote: post #39
staunch wrote: post #38

> " When a major league baseball pitcher throws a 95-mph fastball, only about 400 milliseconds—the duration of a blink—pass before the ball rockets over the plate. And a batter gets less than half that time to decide whether to swing, and where. Baseball" Bah! That's not a knife. This is a knife: twitch FPS gaming. Quake Live at 250 FPS, refreshed at 144hz, with any day . Interestingly, my vision is extremely good. I…

You would lose the bet :-) Keep in mind that the ball is coming straight on, and the batter must discern trajectory (rising, falling) and spin (which affects how the ball curves) and velocity quickly enough that you still have time to move the bat. For example, a fastball and a changeup both drop at the same rate and spin at the same rate. One is coming at 100mph, the other at 75. Since the ball is heading straight f…

I have heard, and this article makes the case that reaction time for people is relatively constant, but that the pros are better at anticipating pitches. They read body and shoulder movements leading up to the ball release.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/more/news/20130724/the-spor...

Re: This App Trains You to See Farther

#55

Post by gcanyon »

For anyone wondering about the (bad) ratings in the iOS App Store: I bought this yesterday for an iPad mini.

I think the app must use web-based resources, and their site was slammed yesterday. I could do nothing but give it my name, and then it would go to a black screen and sit there -- no feedback, no activity, for minutes. I was left thinking I had wasted my money.

Today the app loads and runs successfully. The interface is bad. Really bad. Text-overlapping-other-text-and-graphics bad.

The controls are iffy. You're supposed to tap various images but sometimes the taps are off by an inch or more.

Nevertheless, it seemed to do pretty much what it is supposed to. It concluded my first session, congratulated me, and died. I checked and it saved my progress, so there's that.

I'm not totally put out since I got to do the exercises, and it seems plausible that it might help my mediocre vision. I hope the usability, design, and load issues are fixed soon.

Re: This App Trains You to See Farther

#56

Post by staunch »

fatrachet wrote: post #51
staunch wrote: post #38

> " When a major league baseball pitcher throws a 95-mph fastball, only about 400 milliseconds—the duration of a blink—pass before the ball rockets over the plate. And a batter gets less than half that time to decide whether to swing, and where. Baseball" Bah! That's not a knife. This is a knife: twitch FPS gaming. Quake Live at 250 FPS, refreshed at 144hz, with any day . Interestingly, my vision is extremely good. I…

This app specifically improves clear vision at farther distances, which seems far more useful on a daily basis, especially since a lot of people don't have good vision. Compared to twitch games that only improve reaction time in a very limited practically applicable scope. Considering the small amounts of time investment necessary to get good results, this app seems much more useful than playing quake.

The way the app works seems to me to be a subset of what's required to play Quake well, so if it works I'd bet Quake works better. I also think Quake has other benefits (like reaction time training, spatial awareness, etc, etc) but it could have other downsides too.

Re: This App Trains You to See Farther

#58

Post by eru »

staunch wrote: post #56
fatrachet wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This app specifically improves clear vision at farther distances, which seems far more useful on a daily basis, especially since a lot of people don't have good vision. Compared to twitch games that only improve reaction time in a very limited practically applicable scope. Considering the small amounts of time investment necessary to get good results, this app seems much more useful than playing quake.

The way the app works seems to me to be a subset of what's required to play Quake well, so if it works I'd bet Quake works better. I also think Quake has other benefits (like reaction time training, spatial awareness, etc, etc) but it could have other downsides too.

> [...] but it could have other downsides too.

Like sitting on your ass? (I like Quake, but I wouldn't pretend I play it for anything but fun.)

There's also some research that shows that RTS are the best thing for practicing multitasking and fast decision making under uncertainty.

Re: This App Trains You to See Farther

#59

Post by eru »

gcanyon wrote: post #55

For anyone wondering about the (bad) ratings in the iOS App Store: I bought this yesterday for an iPad mini. I think the app must use web-based resources, and their site was slammed yesterday. I could do nothing but give it my name, and then it would go to a black screen and sit there -- no feedback, no activity, for minutes. I was left thinking I had wasted my money. Today the app loads and runs successfully. The in…

Otherwise, someone else will probably clone it better.

Re: This App Trains You to See Farther

#60

Post by eru »

cjensen wrote: post #35

It's an interesting effect, if it exists. A researcher charging money for an app based on an effect which he has not finished studying -- no blind study yet -- is a really... odd... thing to do in my opinion. Were it me, I wouldn't charge before the blind study is done.

Why? Charge as soon as you can make money. Minimum viable product and all that.
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