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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 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.
It was a once in a lifetime experience. Which means I'll never do it again.