Autofocals: A New Way of Looking at the World—Nitish Padmanaban—PhD Candidate, Electrical Engineering at Stanford University
Finding Genius Podcast
Richard Jacobs
4.4 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 22 October 2019
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
According to Nitish Padmanaban, the problem in vision is deceivingly simple: as a person ages, the lenses in their eyes stiffen and become unable to change shape enough to focus on different objects in their environment. As a result, a person might get reading or bifocal lenses to help them see what they need to. As a fifth-year Ph.D. student at Stanford University, Padmanaban is working on a unique solution to this problem, which is a focused, tunable lens that replaces the functionality that's lost by the eyes over time.
These autofocus function as a combination of two types of eye-tracking software and a depth camera, and are able to determine exactly which object a person is looking at, how far from the person the object is located, and change shape accordingly so that the person can seamlessly focus on anything in their line of vision.
In today's episode, Padmanaban discusses the technical details of how the product works, how the technology of the lenses is based upon the technology behind virtual reality headsets, what they're aiming to improve about the product in the future, and more. Tune in to hear the full conversation and check out https://www.computationalimaging.org/ to learn more.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You're listening to the Future Tech Podcast with Richard Jacobs. |
| 0:09.0 | Future Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, |
| 0:11.8 | Stem Cells, 3D printing, gene editing, |
| 0:14.7 | Bitcoin, blockchain, the microbiome, quantum computing, virtual reality, and exploring space |
| 0:21.0 | are much closer than you might think. |
| 0:23.0 | In fact, many early versions of these technologies are in play right now, |
| 0:27.0 | and the companies that are using these technologies |
| 0:30.0 | for the focus of this podcast. |
| 0:32.0 | My goal for you, the listener, is to learn from these |
| 0:34.4 | podcasts. You may very well learn something that may change the course of your life |
| 0:38.2 | for the better, steer you towards a new career, or give you insight into |
| 0:42.4 | addressing a thorny medical problem. |
| 0:44.6 | Remember, this podcast and its content is informational and nature only. |
| 0:48.6 | No medical, tax, legal, financial, or psychological advice is being given. |
| 0:53.0 | If you've enjoyed the podcast, please listen, subscribe, like, and tell your friends about it. |
| 0:58.0 | Thank you. Hello, this is Richard Jacobs with the Future Tech and Future Tech |
| 1:08.0 | Health podcast. I am the Tish by Mannebon. He's a 50-year PhD student at Stanford. We have to be talking about a new type of glasses and or lens. Sounds interesting. I'll let |
| 1:19.7 | Nettish describe it. So thanks for coming to teach how you doing |
| 1:23.0 | hi uh good I'm literally looking forward to my glasses to what you have to say |
| 1:29.4 | so tell me about the the problem in vision and what you're doing to improve it or solve it. |
| 1:35.4 | Sure, the problem and vision is, well, deceivingly simple. |
| 1:40.5 | I'm sure you've noticed that when people get older, they tend to move whatever they're reading further away from them and then they get reading glasses or by focal lenses. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Richard Jacobs, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Richard Jacobs and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.