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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

There's nothing dystopian at all about these high-tech blinkers for humans [theverge.com]

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 [designart.jp] 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 [greenfunding.jp] 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 [kentuckyderby.com].

See also: Open offices have driven Panasonic to make horse blinders for humans [techcrunch.com]

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