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from the none-so-blind-as-he-who-would-not-see dept.
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 Runaway1956 on Thursday October 18 2018, @03:46PM (3 children)
Well, I'd like to clarify things a little. The bike doesn't "force" you to become aware. The bike only separates those who learn to be aware, from the squids.
Hmmm. I did a search for squid, to help other readers not familiar with the term. Link after link, where they've overthought and over stated the obvious. A fool rider soon resembles a squid, in that he no longer has a spine, or the other bones necessary to sand upright. A mass of wiggly-squiggly appendages sticking out of a motorized wheelchair looks a lot like a squid.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday October 18 2018, @07:48PM
Absolutely: get rid of the riders who can't drive and only let the riders who can drive ...uh... drive!
Yeah, the motorcycle is like a mini Darwin effect: clears out the least likely to survive.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday October 18 2018, @09:10PM
I rode a bike for about a year when I was a broke teenager. I finally gave up on it when I realized that is wasn't that drivers didn't see me, but in fact they saw me and actively wanted to kill me. Now that I'm surrounded by a ton of steel I look out for bikes, and get pissed off when some numbnuts decides to do stupid shit like stay in my blind spot, or do wheelies at 80 MPH on the shoulder (I live in a Navy town).
About a year ago on one of those COPs like shows (it was a rerun from 10-20 years ago) they pulled up to the scene of a motorcycle accident. Camera started at tangled machinery, then followed a wide red streak on the pavement for a good 30-40 feet before finding a lump covered in a yellow tarp.
My ducks are not in a row. I don't know where some of them are, and I'm pretty sure one of them is a turkey.
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Friday October 19 2018, @05:12PM
I'm partial to the phrase "squishies" for pedestrians, and "turbo-squishies" for people on motorcycles.