You can't deny that cool shit comes out of big corporations

At first glance, contact lenses that produce what some call “devil eyes” will get noticed merely by their appearance. But when picking up the rotation of a baseball traveling at 90 mph or noticing the slightest contrast on a putting green is key to your professional success, it is definitely an eye-opening experience.

And that’s just what elite athletes are having with the new Nike MaxSight’s sport-tinted lenses. All over the world, Nike’s latest vision innovation is being sampled and adopted for competition in daytime. Brian Roberts, the American League’s leading hitter for most of the season, wears them. Record-setting distance runner Paula Radcliffe tried them this month. And the world’s No. 1 tennis player, Roger Federer, even contributed to the terminology.

“He was talking about tossing his serve in the air and sometimes the ball can get in the sun and you lose it,” said Rob Barnette, Business Director for Nike MaxSight. “But when he tried these, he coined the phrase ‘recovery time’ and how the lenses helped. Most athletes just say, ‘I can see how these would give me an advantage.’”

Nike MaxSight’s most notable performance feature is that it filters out specific wavelengths of light in the visual spectrum to enhance key visual elements. In other words, users can see a ball pop out more clearly from its background or might notice the line of a putt more clearly.

In addition, the lenses help reduce glare, provide UV and blue light protection and, with the lens resting directly on the eye, eliminate image distortion that can occur in standard sunglasses.

The product of eight years of research with Dr. Alan Reichow of Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon, and three years of collaboration with Bausch & Lomb, Nike MaxSight lenses will be available in two lens tints. Amber is for seeing a fast-moving object more clearly, such as a baseball or tennis ball; grey-green is for enhanced contrast in changing light environments such a golf course or on a run.

Nike MaxSight – available in prescription and non-prescription lenses -- launches in August. For now, the product has been limited to the more than 600 athletes who have tested it, including more than 100 of Nike’s best. In fact, the fitting process has produced a performance benefit of its own: with eye exams required, several athletes have learned they need corrective lenses.

Even that “devil eye” has its advantages, at least in the eyes of some.

“It makes the eye look distinct,” Dr. Reichow said. “It looks competitive.”

For more information: http://www.nike.com/nikevision/main.html
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http://www.bausch.com/us/resource/visioncare/soft/nike_maxsight_resfaq.jsp
or

http://www.sportingnews.com/experts/stan-mcneal/20050421.html