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sunglasses

Ears-on with Sanpei Optics' audio sunglasses

The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades. Ideally, they'd have built-in earbuds. And now they do, thanks to Sanpei Optics.

Sanpei uses fancy lingo like "audio-adaptable glasses" and "hinged temple bar design eyewear" to describe its new product, but it's really pretty simple. The glasses look like regular shades, but you can slide the included earbuds into a dock at the end of each arm, pop the securely fixed 'buds into your ears, and connect to your smartphone or other mobile device right from your glasses.

Getting the glasses to fit just so depends on adjusting the aforementioned patented hinged temple bar (tilt it down for a tighter fit, up for a looser feel). That took some fumbling when I first got my hands on a pair of these, but once I'd angled the arms right, the polarized glasses felt lightweight and comfortable. The earbuds rested at a slightly strange angle when attached to the shades, but I'm still not sure if I need to further fiddle with the dock and three sizes of included silicone earbud tips -- or if, like my former CNET colleague Jasmine France, I'm just weird-eared. … Read more

Retro-cool sunglasses put pixels on your face

If you used to build with toy bricks and play 8-bit video games, check out these $250 Hal Pixel sunglasses from Protos, with aesthetics inspired by Lego (or perhaps Minecraft terrain).

Fortunately, the glasses don't crumble easily like those Lego sets my friends would accidentally step on. … Read more

Sunglasses designed to clear things up for the color blind

Color blindness, also known as color vision deficiency, is not an issue I've had to deal with. In fact, it's not something that crops up in women much. Statistics show about 1 in 10 men have some form of color blindness, so if you're not color blind yourself, you probably know someone who is.

That means there's a good chunk of the population that wouldn't mind a little assist in the color department. This is where sunglasses maker EnChroma hopes to make its mark. … Read more

Gucci's liquid wood sunglasses can biodegrade

Plastic shades seem so passe, compared to Gucci's new liquid wood sunglasses.

The Italian high-end fashion giant worked with sunglasses manufacturer Safilo to create the "green" glasses, which sport a frame made of material never used before in production eyewear: liquid wood, a renewable plastic of sorts that actually consists of biodegradable wood fiber, resins, and the polymer lignin. … Read more

Epson's sexy head-mounted display now shipping

At first glance, the $699 Epson Moveria BT-100 may look like a pair of futuristic shades or even conjure up images of those protective sunglasses given to cataract patients. But in reality, these frames pack some seriously techy features like multimedia playback and Web browsing.

The Moveria BT-100 is a wearable display featuring a micro-projector that delivers images to each eye from a built-in qHD (960x540) screen. The overall projected image size appears similar to an 80-inch display viewed from 16.4 feet away, and since the glasses are see-through, you can still see what's around you in the real world. Meanwhile, the built-in earbuds provide Dolby Mobile virtual surround sound. … Read more

Sunglasses smarten up to 'fight' the sun's glare

Some people pay a lot of money for sunglasses that do very little. If new glare-fighting tech comes to market, they could continue paying a lot of money, but for sunglasses that actually protect their eyes from the sun's harsh glare.

Since 2003, when he founded Dynamic Eye, entrepreneur Chris Mullin has been working on eyewear tech that can detect bright spots of light and then darken specific regions of the lenses to block that glare. He has now teamed up with the University at Buffalo to bring to develop sunglasses employing this tech.

"Our products let users … Read more

Solar sunglasses harness rays for gadget power

Sunglasses, check. iPod, check. Charger, check. Actually, nix that last one. A new pair of solar-powered shades that double as a gadget charger mean one less item to toss in the beach bag.

The cool-looking "Self-Energy Converting Sunglasses" by designers Hyun-Joong Kim and Kwang-Seok Jeong integrate into their lenses dye solar cells that convert sunlight into energy. Just plug a device into the power jack in the back of the shades and it's powered up. You're not going to want to plug an electric car into these, of course, but for small devices they could provide … Read more

Catch a flick on your sunglasses

The Thanko All In One Sunglasses out of Japan look more 3D clunky than Prada sleek. But what else would you expect from a pair of shades that incorporate a media player?

The glasses are capable of reading MP3 and WMA audio formats, and playing video formats MP4, MPG, AVI, and ASF. That means you can listen to music or watch movies (at a squinty 432x240 resolution) on the specs themselves. This is no Cinemax, to be sure, but the glasses could be a fun diversion on a train or park bench if you don't mind the bulk. Note … Read more