Smart Sunglasses

"Many readers have submitted this story of chemists at the University of Washington who have made glasses with lenses that can be transparent or dark, in shades of yellow, green, or purple, all at the push of a button. The glasses will let the wearer instantly change the color of their lenses to virtually any hue by tuning a tiny electronic knob in the frame."

Comments

how about polarization

[Blue Shifted]

i frequently use polarized glasses to examine lcd screens for defects; it would be nice to change the angle of polarization without having to tilt my head at odd angles. also, when i change the angle, i can see through many different reflections.

Re:how about polarization

[Hijacked Public]

The ones you describe are called "Circular Polarizers" or CPLs. Most decent camera stores will also have linear ones but those require the kind of head movement that some poeple seem to want to avoid. I suggest asking for the Kasemann type of CPL because they last longer.

As an aside, some people less familiar with technology think that CPLs are voodoo magic. Show them that their reflections in a window appear and disappear as they rotate the glass and their reactions can be pretty interesting. Children will usually stuff the CPL into their pocket and run away. Some adults will stand there and play with it for hours while others will drop it and threaten to kill you. You never know what you are going to get.

Motorcycles

[LBt1st]

I would buy these in an instant! I commute on a motorcycle and often times I leave in the morning. Unless it's cloudy i have to put on my sunglasses before the sun is even up. Then I ride north with darkened vision. But I have no choice because later I have to ride into the sun as it's rising. Impossible to safely do without the shades. Wearing a helmet, even with a flip up face-mask, it takes too long (and again, is unsafe) to fumble with putting on shades while on the bike. With these, I could easily turn a knob while at a traffic light. I just hope they put the knob where I can get to with with the helmet on, and while wearing gloves. Hell if they just made helmet visors that'd be even better!

Re:Motorcycles

[skiflyer]

If your visor isn't UV protected you can already do this today with Transitions... http://www.transitions.com/ , they have several models for different usages (different starting tints basically)... but they're UV activated, so they kinda suck for their most obvious usage, driving. I hear their newer model "drivers" are supposed to be better for that... don't get me wrong, the old ones worked in a car, just not as well as they work out in the open air.

Can you put them on random?

[cyphercell]

If you can they might compete with psychedelic drugs.

Colorblindness aid?

[ereshiere]

I've got red-green colorblindness (green traffic lights look white, reds look darker than other colors, brown looks like both green and red, etc.). Will this help people like me in any way?

Re:Colorblindness aid?

[TheThiefMaster]

Out of interest, are the pictures on the Wikipedia colour-blindness page accurate? They are supposed to show what the "colours of the rainbow" look like to a colour-blind person, but in theory if a colour-blind person looks at them then they shouldn't be able to tell the difference between the "normal" picture and one of the artificial colour-blindness ones.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_blind#Classifi cation_of_color_deficiencies

Re:Colorblindness aid?

[Dragonslicer]

I'm red-green colorblind, and I can tell the difference between those images. The colors in the second one look lighter and faded compared to the first one. Here is a page that has the Ishihara test patterns. Here is another page that has more detailed information. As a point of comparison, the two pictures of flowers about half way down the page (subtitled "red-insensitive dichromat") look very nearly identical to me.

Similar stuff at Berkeley

[SpaghettiPattern]

Berkeley did similar work back in the 70-ies. Letting people see all kinds of colors. While hacking BSD.

Re:Are they...

[Phroon]

They did use polarizers to make Zaphod's Peril sensitive sunglasses in the TV series.

Old news

[holy_calamity]

Electrochromics have been figured out for a long time. You can already buy rear view mirrors for cars and a motorcycle helmet with an electrochromic visor has been around since 2003. Nothing to see here.

Re:Photocromatic glass

[GigG]

There are two problems with the current photochromatic sunglasses. First they are sensitive to only UV. If you are in a car built in the last 20 years they do not get near as dark as they would outside because the cars class is filtering a bunch of the UV. Also they are very temperature sensitive. They work better when it is cold. Which is the exact opposite of when most people need sunglasses. I used to wear them and played gold on some very clear days in the winter and you could have used them for welding they got so dark. Speaking of welding there are welding shields with LCD to darken the window and I always thought that this technology if made smaller and lighter would be perfect for sunglasses. Look Mom, my glasses get dark when I want them too.