There's nothing dystopian at all about these high-tech blinkers for humans
Ever feel like you're having too much fun in the office? Like your boss just isn't getting enough value out of your life? Fear not: Panasonic has designed a pair of high-tech blinkers* that block out your peripheral vision to help you concentrate on the job at hand.
The concept is called Wear Space, which consists of a lightweight, wraparound fabric screen that conceals a pair of Bluetooth headphones. The screen cuts your horizontal field of view by around 60 percent, while the headphones come with a built-in noise-canceling feature that can pipe in music of your choice. It charges over USB and has a battery life of 20 hours.
The Wear Space isn't an official Panasonic product (yet), but a prototype was developed by the company's Future of Life design studio. An early version was shown at SXSW earlier this year, but the creators of the Wear Space are now raising money for the device on Japanese crowdfunding site GreenFunding.
[...] *Also known as blinders. The metaphor we're going for here is the equipment used to restrict a horse's vision, so we're using the correct terminology, as recommended by the Kentucky Derby.
See also: Open offices have driven Panasonic to make horse blinders for humans
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday October 18 2018, @02:01PM
I'd expect it to be kinda similar to putting on a pair of glasses. If you only wear contacts for a long time, then put on a pair of glasses with *exactly the same prescription*...you'll pretty quickly feel nauseous or vaguely sea-sick, and it might take several days or even a couple weeks to get used to them before that stops happening. Even though it's the same prescription, the fact that the glasses don't cover your entire field of vision the same way contacts do can create some problems. There's not really any long-term effects though...I wouldn't expect any permanent damage unless you're literally wearing the blinders all day long.