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New Material For Fast-Change Sunglasses, Data Storage

Posted by kdawson on from the epileptics-need-not-apply dept.

sciencehabit writes "'Researchers have developed a material that almost instantaneously (30 ms) changes from clear to dark blue when exposed to ultraviolet light, and it just as quickly reverts to clear when the light is turned off. The new material, one of a class called photochromics, could be useful in optical data storage as well as in super-fancy sunglasses.'" A comment to the article notes some of the potential dangers of quick-change sunglasses.

12 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. Slow Memory by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    30ms is pretty slow by memory standards.

    Could you imagine a CD burner which takes 30ms per bit?

    It'll need to get a LOT faster to be used in any kind of processing or storage medium.

    1. Re:Slow Memory by erayd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      30ms is pretty slow by memory standards.

      Could you imagine a CD burner which takes 30ms per bit?

      It'll need to get a LOT faster to be used in any kind of processing or storage medium.

      Who says you have to write things serially? Admittedly write latency would suck, but you can still get a phenomenal throughput if you write a whole bunch of bits in parallel.

      --
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    2. Re:Slow Memory by Fred_A · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Especially if you need to keep the UV source on to keep the data stored...

      --

      May contain traces of nut.
      Made from the freshest electrons.
    3. Re:Slow Memory by EdZ · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And you need to keep refreshing RAM too. With a refresh every 30ms, this could be used for medium-term storage in an optical computer.

    4. Re:Slow Memory by Qzukk · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Probably not, but I bet you could put a few big ones behind an LCD mask.

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
  2. Something missing? by OpenSourced · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nowhere in the article they mention how the data is going to be 'stored'. If you need to be constantly bathing the material with UV light just to keep it dark, there is not much storage going on, IMO. Of course there might be missing data from the article, but they should explain a bit more.

    --
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  3. The eye adapts slowly by oneirophrenos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's all good and well, but the eye doesn't adapt to changes in lighting as fast as this material does. What if the lens (and the eye) were subjected to a bright light from the angle of, say, 70 degrees? This wouldn't be blinding, because it would not hit the area of high acuity vision on the retina, but would nevertheless cause the lens to dim. So we would have a situation where the light hitting the retina would be significantly reduced, but the eye would still be adapted to conditions of relative brightness. We would effectively be blind (think of going to dark indoors on a bright sunny day).

    1. Re:The eye adapts slowly by Al+Al+Cool+J · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Perhaps. But it seems to me that the experience of these things going dark would be very similar to the common everyday experience of simply putting on a pair of sunglasses, something I've done in just about every lighting condition, and usually while driving. The only time I can recall it ever being a problem is when I've done it at night (cue Corey Hart).

  4. Re:flicker probably not an issue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    FTA- "And the compound is so stable that the reactions can be repeated thousands of times."

    Without doing the math(s), driving along a tree-lined road ought to kill 'em in a few hundred metres.

  5. Re:flicker probably not an issue by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Apparently, I have hallucinated the suntan or sunburn that I get on long car trips. Thanks for the info, though!

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  6. Blue, non-polarized, non car = whatever by markdavis · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Although it sounds interesting, I doubt most people are going to want to look at the world through blue-colored glasses. What would be far more useful would be glasses that the *user* can decide when they turn dark and by how much. 80% of the time I wear sunglasses is in the car, and Transitions and other UV activated glasses are useless for that purpose because they won't change dark.

    I also find that polarized sunglasses are *far* more valuable than just plain darkening glasses. Yet, there is no way to have changing, polarized lenses (right now). So.... give me glasses that can change from 100% clear to full polarized (50% dark at least), on-demand, instantly, and I will then get very excited :)

  7. Re:epileptics-need-not-apply. Why not? by failedlogic · · Score: 2, Insightful

    People should realize that not everyone who is epileptic is photosensitive. Many people seem to have the incorrect impression that flashing lights and such will trigger off a seizure with anyone that has epilepsy. This is a myth.