Japan: See-through public toilets open in Tokyo parks:
Transparent public toilets which light up "like a beautiful lantern" have been installed in Tokyo.
The see-through loos have opened in two parks in Shibuya, a commercial part of the Japanese capital which is renowned for its shopping facilities and quality of nightlife.
The toilets use coloured "smart glass" which turns opaque when they are occupied.
The glass technology has been used so people can identify whether the toilet is clean - and if anyone is currently inside.
Users have already said how, once inside the toilet, they cannot tell if the glass is opaque or not - giving them the strange feeling they are on display while spending a penny.
[...] There are plans to open more of the transparent toilets across the same neighbourhood by next spring.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Monday August 24 2020, @03:49PM (2 children)
See this recent SN article: Xiaomi Launches a Nearly Useless Transparent OLED TV [soylentnews.org]
Would transparent toilets be a good application of this technology?
Especially if you put two of these panels back to back. When unoccupied, both panels are transparent. When occupied, from inside you see opaque walls with nice scenery. From outside the toilet you see camera views of the person on display who is using that toilet -- so that you can tell it is occupied. A high tech solution to a real problem.
Is there a chemotherapy treatment for excessively low blood alcohol level?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2020, @04:51PM (1 child)
The problem with the transparent TVs is that because of the way they are made, if they glitch or power goes out, you are on full display to everyone outside. Unless a LCD layer can be made dark by default, which would be in between the displays.
And you know it's going straight to internet if it fails transparent.
And it's a waste of power.
(Score: 3, Touché) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 25 2020, @04:25AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday August 24 2020, @04:04PM (5 children)
I'm watching you while I shit! Japan keeps inventing new fetishes.
It would be nice to know more about how the glass works. And if it has a failure commode.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by nostyle on Monday August 24 2020, @04:13PM (1 child)
There goes Tokyo!
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday August 24 2020, @05:06PM
Nope, not while she's in charge [youtube.com] of Shibuya! Which was apparently in the 90's, actually, from the animation style.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2020, @05:26PM (1 child)
Consider the submitter! Scatology is one of this big things.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2020, @05:53PM
Submitter is studying you, yes. All of us scatologists are studying you. Please, post moar!
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 25 2020, @04:29AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2020, @04:29PM (11 children)
Do they fail opaque or transparent ?
And what is it whith japanese culture ? They all seem to be stuck at the mental age of 13 year-old boys and their fantasies/fetishes.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2020, @05:47PM (3 children)
Yes, they should become more like Americans. Shitting in the streets in SF, rioting like animals, stealing anything which isn't bolted down, etc.
When the unemployment checks run out, when Joe Bob can no longer post his penis pics on Facebook from his uber smartphone, when the money runs out and people hit the shelters and the streets, shit will really get real.
Yeah, so it'll be fun watching which monkey, Trump or Biden, will chimp dance you guys into the next few years.
(Score: 1, Touché) by MIRV888 on Monday August 24 2020, @06:10PM (1 child)
You seem happy and rational. Have you considered Russia?
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2020, @06:12PM
Shitting on the frozen tundra doesn't sound very appealing, to be honest.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2020, @06:54PM
Not _all_ Americans are liberals.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday August 24 2020, @05:55PM (6 children)
Japanese culture tends to be very repressive of sexuality in real life, which in turn creates an industry of media (and, in seedier areas, experiences for a fee) that caters to those unfulfilled desires. This ranges from salarymen who can't take time to date, to people from very traditional families that end up in arranged marriages that they may not find fulfilling, to hikikomori who are rejecting social contact, to women who are considered too old to find love by the time they turn 25 or so.
This isn't a strictly Japanese phenomenon, of course: For instance, the people who view porn the most in the US and seem to really like the very kinky stuff are in the Bible Belt, while in more liberal areas it's much more likely for someone to be able to fulfill their desires with real-life consenting humans.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday August 24 2020, @07:47PM (5 children)
Your hypothesis is all well and good, but Japan can't both be repressive of sexuality and have sex toys and sexual fanservice on public display in large chain stores and television. I doubt they're selling sex toys in the grocery stores in the Bible Belt.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday August 24 2020, @08:16PM (1 child)
Sure it can. Just like Victorian Britain, where the upper and middle classes acted ridiculously repressed, everybody without money could barely afford to have love in their lives, and brothels were thriving businesses. Hypocrites are quite common among those who are trying to stop other people from enjoying sex.
Now, it's quite true that Japan is more open about the business of sex than the US is (but not by much - the US might not sell that stuff in groceries, but go 2 miles down the road to the adult shop and they'll be happy to take care of you, and of course the Internet exists), but there's not a massive contradiction between that and repressing people choosing to have sex for fun with no money changing hands.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday August 25 2020, @03:50AM
I don't know what you're trying to say. If you're saying a society where you can buy sex toys next to the children's toy section in a big box store has repressed sexuality, then Hitler was a saint who believed in racial equality.
>the US might not sell that stuff in groceries, but go 2 miles down the road to the adult shop
If you need to head down to the seedy district, that's a much stronger case for cultural repression.
Really, you're confusing the hell out of me. It sounds like you're saying the state that sells guns at Walmart that most people shop at is just as repressed or more repressed in gun ownership than the state that requires going down to a special gun shop that most people don't shop at. That's just silly talk.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday August 24 2020, @09:05PM
"Oh, you want produce. Over there, end of the store."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2020, @09:10PM
What? No more zuchini? How 'bout those big, plump, dill pickles? And, squash. Mama loves a baby squash, now and then.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 25 2020, @04:38AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Monday August 24 2020, @05:17PM (4 children)
I've got to wonder, if these things are switchably opaque, why on earth would they make them one-way? I would guess that most people would be at least a little uncomfortable watching crowds walk by as they do their thing. Doubly so if they're not completely certain whether the crowds can see them back. And since most of the "smart glass" style technology provides bi-directional opacity anyway, it would seem that the designers had to go out of their way to make "crowd-watching" possible.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2020, @06:59PM (3 children)
From the pictures, it appears to be imperfect opacity, so more like a 1-way mirror sort of effect. Or, I think the effect is partially due to it being much brighter outside and much darker inside the bathrooms. So I wonder if it works at all at night... which could be another design goal - limit vandalism (or privacy) by illuminating them at night (Assuming the park is closed / no-one would use one at night anyway.)
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2020, @07:09PM (1 child)
Technically, that's how all one-way mirrors work. Its just a half silvered mirror and the effect is dependent on one room being darker than the other. Swap which room is dark and which is bright and it still works the same.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday August 25 2020, @07:04AM
Simple ones maybe. Nowadays they back the silver with black - one side has a strong reflection that swamps the image, while the other doesn't.
They make the whole thing about 90% opaque and with equal lighting on both sides one side will have a (10% dimmer) reflection, while the other will have a dim (10%) image through the mirror. Provided it is not swamped by the 90% reflection, 10% provides a quite adequate image.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday August 25 2020, @01:51PM
Whichever of those is true, it's not going to fly for long. Eventually, the thing will fail to go opaque and the person inside won't know (because you can always see out). Shortly after that news gets out they'll become an odd bit of abandoned urban sculpture.
At the very least, they need a small mirror on the outside facing in so you can tell when the glass is actually opaque to the outside.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2020, @05:45PM (4 children)
> quality of nightlife
No more sex in the loo kids!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2020, @07:25PM (3 children)
If it senses more than one person inside does it stay transparent? Film at 11.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 24 2020, @09:15PM (2 children)
Moms would hate that. Take Junior-san to potty, and the world looks on?
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Monday August 24 2020, @09:36PM (1 child)
FTFY.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 24 2020, @09:46PM
Daddy-san may not care as much as Mommy-san. A lot of guys who wouldn't whip it out on a crowded street, just wouldn't care a lot if some peeping Thomasina took a look. Now, if Daddy-san were tending to a girl-child, he might be more sensitive.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 2, Touché) by MIRV888 on Monday August 24 2020, @06:05PM (3 children)
I thought we had reached peak Japanese with dirty panty vending machines.
Clearly I was wrong.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2020, @06:17PM
Oh no, there is much more to come. With the declining population in Japan, we might conclude that the "Last of the Japanese" is coming soon. The last few thousand Japanese will all be celebrities, closely monitored by millions around the world. Peak Japanese is still a generation or two away, but it's coming. And, when the last Japanese person dies, all of the manga and related stuff will see an exponential growth in popularity, with every "intellectual rights" corporation claiming to "own" all that shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25 2020, @03:34AM (1 child)
You have much to learn
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25 2020, @03:38AM
Hentai can be educational
(Score: 5, Informative) by edinlinux on Monday August 24 2020, @08:25PM (1 child)
No western news article actually says where they are in Shibuya..
They are in MIyashita Kouen (Park), the new renovated linear park that skirts alongside the JR Yamanote line between Shibuya Station and Harajuku Station, on the right side when heading from Shibuya to Harajuku.
And since they are liquid crystal walls (means has electricity = clear through), then they should fail dark.. but on the other hand, lights also never go out in Central Tokyo anyways, so not really an issue. Even during the 2011 9.0 quake, the lights stayed on and all the escalators kept running.. (and none of the buildings fell down (except the parking ramp at Costco). :-) I only had one power failure, when a fighter jet hit a power line.. it was like 18 years ago or something and only for an hour..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2020, @10:36PM
Sounds like a fun city, really. If I come to Shibuya, can I use an invisible potty, then snag a power line?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday August 24 2020, @10:54PM
- AI
- ack
- what does ack mean
- means wat in computerspeak
- oh OK we have a prob
- you have more than one. that guy on the left is obese, you smell of tobacco and from the way the secretary is walking she must have had an anal sess...[reset button pressed, restarting...]
- AI
- ack
- solve the following problem: people keep putting livestreaming cams in toilet
- factoid recorded. the problem being?
- we want to avoid that
- ez kill all humans
- unfeasible
- destroy all cams
- unfeasible
- outlaw bodily functions
- unfeasible
- make all toilets transparent so livestream is superfluous
- unfeasib... hey... i feel strange, my japanesity is tingling
- solution reached
- k how we call them
- vespAsians
Account abandoned.