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3D Displays May Be Hazardous To Young Children
SchlimpyChicken writes "Turns out 3D television can be inherently dangerous to developing children, and perhaps to adults as well. There's a malaise in children that can prevent full stereopsis (depth perception) from developing, called strabismus or lazy-eye. It is an abnormal alignment of the eyes in which the eyes do not focus on the same object — kind of like when you watch a 3D movie. As a result, depth perception is compromised. Acting on a hunch, the guys over at Audioholics contacted Mark Pesce, who worked with Sega on its VR Headset over 15 years ago — you know, the headset that never made it to market. As it turns out, back then Sega uncovered serious health risks involved with children consuming 3D and quickly buried the reports, and the project. Unfortunately, the same dangers exist in today's 3D, and the electronics, movie, and gaming industries seem to be ignoring the issue. If fully realized, 3D just might affect the vision of millions of children and, according to the latest research, many adults, across the country." The Audioholics article is a good candidate for perusing with Readability — the pseudo-link popups are blinding.
Huh? Hours old and no replies yet? A bug?
WTF is wrong with them!? Why did they bury the findings!
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Parents are sure not to buy one for their kids right? Right? Riiiiight?
I would have replied sooner, but I just couldn't focus properly on the text of the story.
Liberty is not granted to me as a privilege, it is my due.
Not too much to ask for a journal article from a reputable journal or an article from well know science print.
Ten years prior to that, Sega actually did release a 3D headset for the Master System.
Whenever a new technology pops up, there come the people that warn about the dangers coming from it and how the world as we know it will end. This was the same with books, trains, cars, radio television, internet, cell phones.... i am sure there are plenty more... As long as you or your child doesn't consume 3d television 24/7 i am sure you'll be fine.
"Daddy, it's my turn! Let me play my 3DS!"
"Son, for the hundredth time, it will be your turn once your stereopsis is fully developed!"
"Mommmmmy!"
Better known as 318230.
Auto-stereoscopic displays don't require glasses and wouldn't cause this sort of issue if I'm understanding the vision problems correctly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autostereoscopy
In this interview the president of Nintendo discusses the fact that the 3D affect can be dangerous to developing children. Considering the fact that Nintendo began placing health and safety warnings at the beginning of all of their games in 2004 and has included such a message on the startup screens of both the DS and Wii, we can assume that they will make an effort to warn parents and children of the dangers any time the product is turned on.
I went to a talk last week given by BBC R&D with the Institute of Engineering and Technology and the Royal Television Society. The problem with children was raised, however research that is currently being conducted and is finding that children adapt better than adults. We will have to wait until they are finished and peer reviewed however.
What is more worrying is driving a car after watching 3D TV. You eyes focus on a 40 inch screen 3-4m away, however you brain thinks you are looking in the distance because the image is converging at a different point (not 3m away). This isn't really a problem in the cinema as the distance to the screen is far greater, as at 50 feet your eyes are focused at almost infinity. Stepping out of the living room and in to a car can easily have an effect on judgement of distance, and give you headaches.
Headaches, incidentally, is a problem with all consumer home 3D TVs. They will give the vast majority of people a headache after 10 minutes. That's a fact!
Virtual Boy hardware was rated 7+ in its manual.
Besides, this is a display panel, not goggles. Setting stereo separation to 0 would make it little different from a DSi with a better video chip.
Im immune, because 3d doesnt work on me.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/04/12/147235/Do-You-Have-a-Secret-Immunity-To-3D-Movies
How is viewing virtual 3D (where your eyes focus at different depths) different from viewing the real 3D world around you (where, again, your eyes focus at different depths)?
I know nothing about this other than my own inability to focus on different points without the aid of a stereoptic viewer. Many people can do this, but I cannot.
It would seem that anything which hinders the development of the ability to focus both eyes on a single point could be designed to help train one's eyes to do this.
Hopefully, if this has not already been researched, this issue being in the news will catch the interest of a PhD student with the proper background to look into it.
-Todd
Omne ignotum pro magnifico.
I used to have fairly poor vision, but equally in both eyes (-4.25 in both). As I've gotten older, my vision has improved, but more in the right eye than the left (-2.25 left, -0.50 right). I often read at night and never use my glasses. With my vision being somewhat different between the eyes I started getting lazy and only reading with my right eye. Eventually I stopped using binocular vision at all.
Then a few months ago I started to get interesting in stereoscopic photography using the "crossed eyes" method. After about a week of looking at pictures like this, suddenly I was using my binocular vision while reading again. And overall my depth perception improved. I suspect it has something to do with having better focus control of my eyes. So I'm not sure that I buy this "3D is bad for your vision" thing. Actual studies showing the effects would be interesting, but this seems to be just speculation.
But will it keep them off my lawn . . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
when i was 11 i played the virtual boy for hours straight, completely immune to any headaches. this went on for a couple of months with almost daily usage by the hours. how fun Wario Land, mario clash, red alert and mario tennis were. my eyes have not developed any problems, for what it's worth. i guess i will be more cautious with letting my own kids use 3d over a matter of YEARS, though.
So Nintendo rolls out the best thing in handheld games since the first Gameboy, and suddenly 3D is bad for children. What a coincidence. I suspect that this is just an underhanded PR attack against Nintendo by one of its rivals.
It's social Darwinism at work - It will take care of the problems of the idiotocracy via heavy use of the idiot box.
This is Edison Carter, reporting live and direct for Network 23.
I had this kind of issue when I was a kid and correcting it involved the difficult effort of playing video games wearing special glasses and laying on my back starring at a ball on a rope as it circled my head. Horrible thing to experience. Like having your eyes gouged out with a rusty spork. Or not..
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Now when I watch 3D porn I really will go blind
Aren't your eyes focusing on the same object (ie what ever you're looking at) when using a 3D display?
So wait, does this mean Magic Eye pictures (remember those?) can make you go blind too?
And while we're at it, is it really such a great idea that almost all the kids movies these days are pushed in 3D?
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
The ayes react to the proximity of an object in two ways
The first in convergence : both eyes make a slight angle in theay a telemeter would do. this is bound to the distance or at least the PERCEIVED distance when each eye has a different image.
The second is focus : if the object is 50cm away, the focus of each eye is set to 50cm.
In normal vision, these two actions are synchronzed, and many years of living with it has helped us to do so.
Unfortunately, in 3D vision, convergence asks something while focus asks for something else (you see the object at 50cm, but each eye should focus on the screen nevertheless), which is the reason why this false 3D is far from perfect and can be just as painful as eye convergence reeducation. In fact, it is ye convergence DISeducation.
... I did the obligatory periodic health test for those who have a driving licence.
Everything was ok (I use glasses) but for one thing (which apparently did not prevent me from getting the renewal): depth perception was bad (I was about 40 +/- 3 years then).
The only thing I can relate to 3D is Doom and DN 3D.
Go figure...
(*) It was all 3D in the Wolfenstein 3D sense... I didn't use any special hardware -- not even the weird blue-red glasses.
All those Viewmaster slides!
I believe most 3D will "make your eyes hurt" for extended use until they solve vergence and accomodation issues. While there is some work (e.g., accommodation display at Fraunhofer and some work at HITlab) to resolve these, I'm afraid we might not see the results of these at Best Buy anytime soon.
Having demonstrated 3D technology to hundreds of adults and kids, my experience has been that kids below 12 _generally_ don't seem to "get" 3D. Perhaps it's their visual system, or perhaps it's because the inter-pupillary-distance (IPD) is wrong on most systems for how far apart their eyes are. I don't this they'll be missing out on too much if they skip out on the 3D games until their visual systems catch up with the tech.
All this aside, I'm personally thrilled that all this 3D technology is becoming mainstream, but I wouldn't (and wouldn't recommend for anyone to) use the 3D technology for more than a couple of hours a day at most. Still, the fear-mongering articles and the 3-D bashing that accompanies them (probably by people who can't see the 3D effect) kind of ticks me off..
...may be hazardous to your health.
Apparently, EVERY damn thing that is fun,entertaining, or otherwise distracts us from reality is DANGEROUS.
And you know what? I'm pushing 60 and simply don't give a shit if it kills me anymore.
So, I think I'll pour a drink of good bourbon, load the bong, and watch 3D movies until my eyes explode or the Surgeon General kicks in my door...whichever comes first.
I am my own gestalt.
if you would have said this about christianity you would have been modded up as insightful.
No? It's the same thinking. Let's all prohibit a technology because it causes trouble when abused by a tiny, tiny minority of irresponsible people.
When you watch a 3D movie, your eyes are focusing just fine, they are focusing on the screen.
The human visual system conditions that are present in the movie theater are different that real life, since when you are focusing on the screen your eyes are verging in on objects that are not located in what is called the Zero Paralax Position, (ZPS) which is essentially the screen plane.
There is a zone of confort where the decoupling of vergence and focus is ok and there will not be any side effects.
This is achieved by not having too much stuff in negative paralax (in front of) or positive paralax (outside of) the screen.
Kid's human visual system is very adept. Filmakers are careful especially with kids movies to not have a lot of separation in the 3D especially since children's eyes are not as far apart as adults.
Finally most of these studies are old Japanese studies that were performed on old hardware and the results aren't really viable.
I've successfully decoupled my vergence and focus and you can too.
Also if you want to hear more about strabismus and 3-D look up "Stereo Sue" who actually had surgery to regain her strabismus and now is an avid 3-D fan.
This sounds like FUD to me
Seriously, i've been having trouble gauging distances and focusing on objects...
...until I need 3D glasses.
and until software people understand things like the hippocratic oath, they will continue to do the 'IT shrug' and wonder why everyone hates them
The studies say it's probably not an issue for intermittent viewing. Of course the average US couch potato watching a ridiculous amount of TV, which has been show to reduce depth perception and intelligence. Or maybe the lower intelligence just means you'll fall for fake reality TV shows and crap like dirty dancing with the stars. You want your kid to have good eyesight and not be a fat slob, get them outside being active! Don't park them in front of the TV or computer.
I mean.. so what?.. Let's just prepare for the case where we spend most of our time immersed in 3D CG environments. Optimize for that case and develop special goggles/implants to correct the strabismus for the rare occasion when we disconnect and want to take a peek at the naked 'real' world. Who *doesn't* want their view of the real world overlayed with location-aware ads and their gaggle of facebook/skype/tweet messages anyway?
sounds like your eyeglass prescription is not exactly correct for you.
One visit I noticed a testimonial letter in my doctor's waiting room once about a unique approach to vision. I mentioned to the doc that I was wearing contacts. "Oh really? Let's see if they're right for you."
He got behind me, put his hands on my head, and directed me to close my eyes. After a moment, when he had a good 'feel' for the position of my sphenoid (the bone underneath the eyes), he directed me to open my eyes. His response was instant: "these are totally wrong for you. We'll have to fix this too..."
If an eyeglass prescription is NOT correct, the eyes will strain to change the level of focus, and this strain can be felt on the sphenoid (through the temples, of course).
My first prescription was only a little weaker than the prescription I started with. (1/4 diopter in the one eye and 1/2 diopter in the other). Before long, I could tell when I was due for a new prescription...
Look into developmental optometry: http://www.covd.org/. They can't evaluate prescriptions like my doctor does, but developmental optometrists have a lot to offer.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
I'm interested in strabismus because my father and my sister had it. I've been tested for it myself by optometrists with fancy equipment that required me to orient my eyes in different directions, sort of what TFA describes.
I read that whole article and the links and I couldn't find a single thing to support their claim that 3D video causes strabismus.
It looks like the whole article is based on Mark Pesce telling Wayde Robson that he doesn't have time to be interviewed for 2 weeks.
The journalism that Robson practices is a bit too familiar and colloquial for my tastes. It's one thing to read an article that sounds like a guy giving you the straight dope after a few drinks in a bar. It's another thing to read an article that sounds like a "journalist" who doesn't know what "fact checking" means.
He quotes SRI as saying, “You Cannot Give This To Kids!” but that's fiction. SRI would never use words like that in a scientific report. I don't suppose it occurred to Robson to call SRI and find out if they actually did a report like that. Or to call an optometrist or ophthalmologist.
"Children under seven are at risk of strabismus – period." Another fiction.
Let's go back to basic scientific method. If you actually found children under seven who didn't have strabismus, then used 3D video, and developed strabismus, you could raise the reasonable hypothesis that 3D video caused strabismus. I've never heard of strabismus being acquired like that, but I'm open to new evidence.
Nothing in TFA indicates that anybody found a single child under seven who had strabismus from 3D video. So there's no justification for making that statement. It's all speculation.
This could be a problem for adults as well. Even though stereoscopic vision develops by age 7 and that's when it is most plastic, the visual system doesn't become fixed at that age. It can still potentially get screwed up. It's just that it wouldn't be as likely and probably wouldn't be as bad (or at least not as hard to correct) after 7 or so.
Somewhere between valuing my stereoscopic vision too much and not believing 3D capability is worth anywhere near what it currently costs (in part because I'm not convinced anyone knows how to use it well) I believe I will hold off.
I'm a researcher who used to study strabismus and amblyopia.
There are a lot of factual errors in the original post. First of all, strabismus is an eye turn, not a "lazy eye". Amblyopia is what is called "lazy eye". It is not "malaise" that causes strabismus or amblyopia. Amblyopia is am abnormal development of vision during infancy or early childhood due to improper visual inputs from strabismus, anisometropia (unequal refractive error in the two eyes), high refractive error in both eyes, infantile cataract, corneal opacities, or ptosis (eyelid drooping). Strabismus can be due to convergence problems (ability to use the two eyes as a team), uncorrected hyperopia causing excessive accommodation and through the neurological linkage between accommodation and convergence or, in infancy, due to other factors.
3D movies do not cause strabismus or amblyopia. However, people who have binocular vision problems will have increased asthenopia (eyestrain) when viewing them.
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Can anyone tell me if there are similar problems with under-7's watching regular TV and movies?
Of course even in 2D, scenes can have apparent depth-of-field, usually with blurring due to the optics of the camera, despite the viewer's eyes being focussed on the screen.
Seems to me 2D is even more abnormal than 3D - not only are your eyes not focussing naturally, they're not diverging/converging naturally either.
I'm calling bullshit on this one, provided that the viewer is a reasonable distance from the screen - let's say 5m as a first approximation.
In terms of muscle control, there's very little difference between focussing on distant objects. Consider looking at a starry sky - all the stars are in focus simultaneously despite the huge range of distances.
If the screen is 'distant' and all the on-screen objects appear 'distant', then I really doubt there's an issue here - it's just like real life to within a small margin of error.
The situation for VR goggles is quite different. Here the actual focal distance is near and fixed, while the apparent distance will tend to be distant. This is likely to cause eye-strain at the very least, and quite plausibly developmental problems with frequent use.
Even with VR goggles, I suspect the problem is with the near focus, not the stereoscopy. Whether 2D or 3D, just don't let kids sit too close to the screen.
When I was a kid, I spent hours looking into a View Master, studying the details in those tiny little slides.
I also had toys made entirely out of lead. Mercury was cool. And I played with real electricity, complete with real shocks. And, once or twice, I nearly set my bedroom on fire.
I'm still here. And I'm even healthy.
Here's a big *shrug* to everything related to this story.
Kid-proof tablet..
and I can't blame 3D displays for it!
Now I'm not going to say my own logic is better than evidence, but I really don't understand why seeing 3D objects would perturb development of depth perception. The entire world around us is 3D, how do kids manage to train themselves to perceive depth in a three-dimensional wor... well that actually makes perfect sense, rather the question is, shouldn't it be 2D displays the ones messing with depth perception?
But... the future refused to change.
I don't have much experience with this new-fangled 3D stuff... but I went to watch Shrek 3-D the other weekend... and I walked out half-way through the movie to go play DDR at the arcade. I'm a big PC gamer, and I did think about going for Nvision with my new comp, good thing I waited for more positive reports about it. I'm not sure what was wrong with Shrek 3D, it probably didn't help I couldn't stand the movie, but I was totally non-impressed with the 3D effect. My eyes aren't that good and I wasn't wearing my glasses, probably could have had an affect on the experience, but whatever it was, it wasn't entertaining enough to keep me sitting down long enough to watch the whole thing. I'm thinking 3D might be more entertaining with PC games... you know, content that is actually interesting, but I'm definitely waiting... probably a long time.
For years, LCD displays have given me headaches, and I religiously kept using a CRT for all my graphic work. I simply could not look at an LCD display. It wasn't until I came across a good IPS panel that I noticed that I had no trouble looking at it and focusing my eyes correctly. As it turns out, cheap TN-panel LCDs have such a narrow viewing angle that the image viewed by the left eye is noticeably different than the image for the right. Rotating your head makes the problem even worse.
So, people kept telling me that LCDs are easier on the eyes, and I always said they were liars. Anything that causes pain and headaches can't be a good thing in the long term. However, now that I have a good LCD, I have finally ditched my old CRT and will never go back.
There really is no excuse to keep making horrible TN-panel LCDs, and yet, they are still everywhere. Lowest common denominator wins again. I sure hope that 3D technology doesn't evolve as slowly as LCD panels.
find it odd to read "children consuming 3D"?
why is it that any time media is the topic these days its "consume, consume, consume"? Not watch, not listen, consume.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
He still hasn't finished writing out all the $1.99 checks from his first invention.
Mark Edwards
I'm very surprised to see this article on the front page of slashdot. About 7-8 months ago, I was in the market for a new television: a panasonic plasma. Since I knew they were coming out with new 3d tv's, I decided to do some research on them. Suddenly, I started to think about all the times when I had gone to the movies and watched them on 3d, only to come out disappointed because of the headache I had acquired. I poured through hours worth of webpages and learned how we are able to see the 3d effects created in the theaters. Its kind of ridiculous to think that I have not seen any widespread front page news coverage on how your eyes are forced to move unnaturally. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binocular_dysphoria It has to do with how our eyes see things. 3d makes our eyes do unnatural things. I think its safe to say that children's bodies are constantly developing, and they are more susceptible to damage than adults are. If you really want to read about how these things work, I found a great link. http://www.journalofvision.org/content/8/3/33.full I like my children, so personally I'd rather be safe than sorry.
I have to ask, at what percentage of the kid's life does this effect show up?
After all, if this only affects the kids' visual cortex development if they are spending 50% of their time on it, then I'd say, much like Olestra Potato chips causing "leakage" if you eat a bag of them, that you are going to be seeing other issues long before you see this.
Get the kids outside! Go Geocaching! Go to the zoo! Fly a kite - hell, how about you and your kid strap a camera to the kite and take some amazing pictures that he can take to show and tell?
How about the kid spending time AWAY from the plug-in-drug?
www.eFax.com are spammers
Seriously, i've been having trouble gauging distances and focusing on objects...
Try it again, only do it sober this time.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The term lazy eye is used for a related condition called amblyopia, not strabismus itself. Strabismus causes double vision because both eyes are not aligned in a manner that allows the brain to fuse both pictures together to form a single 3D image. The brain attenuates the signal from the misaligned eye in order to reduce double vision. The reduction of vision in that eye is a condition called amblyopia, or lazy eye. Since you need 2 eyes to form a 3D image, people with amblyopia have reduced depth perception.
Looking at 3D TV isn't doing to give you strabismus or amblyopia. The risk to children is that until a certain age, the section of your brain that controls 3D fusion is still developing so if they spend all their time looking crosseyed at a tv, the brain may calibrate itself to provide fusion while the eyes are crossed. That would result in double vision when the eyes are properly aligned. That's why it's important to have a child treated for strabismus as early as possible.
I have no idea whether "3D" videos will damage my eyesight but I know I enjoy my eyesight, so I'm not going to take the chance until there is more evidence that it is not bad. I couldn't really care less if the video I'm watching is not in 3D. As a matter of fact I don't really care if it's in HD. I just want it to be enjoyable.
We all use MP3 which is also know to impear hearing (because of specific sounds(frequencies) being removed during encoding), also the sound volume has never hampered anyone from using headsets... Also the specified report is in regard to a HMD (heda mounted device) which is something completely different as 3D-shutterglasses. Inh a HMD you have special optics which are needed to be able to see the displays up close correctly, and the biggest problem with those in cheap devices is they aren't precise enough to align the optics perfectly for most people. And it's the misalignment of those optics that are 'dangerous'.. I myself have some of those old HMD's and can attest that if you don't align/focus the optics correctly you can seriously hamper your vision if used for a longer period.. IMHO the Forte VFX-1 had the best configurable optics for any consumer HMD (if only they had used glass instead of plastic for the lenses it would even be much better). Since the 3D-shutterglasses doesn't rely on optics it's something completely different as the HMD problems.. The only thing I can think of what might be a problem is that you can look above/under your glasses, so I think those 'sunglasses' which go 'round' your head would be much better (I know those kind of blue/red glasses work better for me as the regular 'paper'versions (as long as the colortint of the glasses are also correct ofcourse)...
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
For those that are interested in the science, here is a post on the topic I wrote in response to a similar query on a human vision research email list.
----
From CVNET, 17th March:
Re: CVNet - Sterescopic viewing - a health risk?
About 15 years ago a number of us were thinking about this problem. Eli Peli was very active in the area and I'd direct you to his website to find the papers he published. Also look for papers by Peter Howarth. Mark Mon-Williams, John Wann (plus at the outset, one of Mark's colleagues, Roger Ackerley) and I published a series of articles based upon our work with the displays that were around at the time
Mon-Williams, M, Wann, J.P. & Rushton, S.K. (1993). Binocular Vision in a Virtual World: Visual deficits following the wearing of a head-mounted display. Ophthalmic & Physiological Optics, 13, 387-391.
Rushton S., Mon-Williams, M. and Wann, J. (1994). Binocular vision in a bi-ocular world: new generation head-mounted displays avoid causing visual deficit. Displays, 15, 255-260.
Wann, J.P. Rushton, S.K. & Mon-Williams M. (1995). Natural problems for stereoscopic depth perception in Virtual Environments. Vision Research, 35, 2731-2736.
The first two of the above describe findings with particular displays, the latter is a more theoretical note, eg why you should use parallel axes etc.
Tricia Riddell and I wrote a paper for a special issue of Applied Ergonomics on VR systems where we _speculated_ (note the title of the article) about the potential problems associated with children using stereo displays. I must confess I've not read the paper since it was published (I will have a reprint in a box somewhere..) but I recall we also speculated about the potential benefits as well (compare visual training procedures for convergence insufficiency etc to stereo displays).
Rushton, S.K. & Riddell, P.M. (1999). Developing visual systems and exposure to virtual reality and stereo displays: some concerns and speculations about the demands on accommodation and vergence. Applied Ergonomics, 30, 69-78.
Tricia and John Bullinaria (a computational modeller) followed on doing research based upon modelling and infant data, eg
Riddell, P.M., Bullinaria, J.A. & Rushton, S.K. (1999). Modelling Adaptation in the Human Oculomotor System. In: D. Heinke, G.W. Humphreys & A. Olsen (Eds), Connectionist Models in Cognitive Neuroscience, 206-217. London: Springer.
The human vision people got a bit bored of this stuff after a time, but in the more applied community an interest persisted and I'd suggest looking at the proceedings of the SPIE 3D Displays conference that happens in San Jose every Jan/Feb.
More recently amongst the CV-NETers, Simon Watt in Bangor and Marty Banks' lab have started to look into the broader issue of stereo displays and the role of accommodative cues, visual stress etc. I recall a recent paper from Marty's lab in JoV on this topic. Rob Allison has also been looking at night-vision goggles for the past few years and so he may have some relevant stuff on prolonged use of stereo displays.
There are some basic tricks you can use which should minimise the likelihood of problems with stereo displays, however there is no guarantee that people making stereo movies are aware of these tricks, nor that they would solve every problem - following on from the email from Julie Harris about a certain percentage of people having problems seeing stereo, I think most of us that use stereo displays also know that some people seems more prone to having problems than others (and its easy to speculate why in terms of the state of their binocular vision systems although I'm not sure if anyone has pinned it down to anything like ac/a ratios or anything).
One possibly useful bit of advice - 15 years or so ago we would keep hearing about mythical research that had been done by the US Army or some group and how they had worked everything out. We looked long and hard for this work that would answ
In the 1979 movie, "The Jerk", Navin R. Johnson (Steve Martin) comes up with a fix for a fast-talking salesman customer whose eyeglasses keep slipping off his nose. It is a wire loop with a nose brace. The grateful man promises Navin 50% of any profits. Navin's invention is a huge success. Just as it look as if life cannot get any better, he is sued by purchasers of the "Opti-Grab" device: It makes wearers cross-eyed.
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
They make Escher sound like some hip new psychedelic. Where can I get some?
Trouble for ford was killing and maiming customers becomes a lot more expensive when its known you are aware of the problem.
That and, even for the time, I'd consider $200k for a life as undervaluing it.
I'm actually less upset about the math than figuring on people being that cheap.
Figure on $750k - $1M per life, and you'd be doing the recall.
I don't read AC A human right
I had the best package, the master system with the 3d glasses and Zaxxon 3d and space harrier 3d. Now I understand!
I agree. Sounds like complete nonsense, and not supported by the paper referred to, which describes "simulator sickness," something that occurs with even non-3D first person displays (probably because the first-person display gives you the impression that you are moving, while your inner ear keeps saying that you aren't--sort of the converse of sea/air sickness where your inner ear tells you that your are moving, but your eyes tell you that you aren't).
Could 3D displays cause strabismus in young children? On first principles, it seems very unlikely. Strabismus is when your eyes fail to converge to merge the two views of a 3D image. On a 3D display, your eyes are converging to merge two stereoscopic views--which is exactly what they do in real life. In fact, I'd say that it is more likely that 3D displays would cure strabismus than cause it. And so far, nobody has shown any actual evidence that they can cause it.
On the other hand, Nintendo has to protect themselves. The very fact that somebody has suggested that 3D displays could harm vision, no matter how flimsy the rationale, puts Nintendo at risk of being sued by anybody whose kid uses the product and develops visual problems of any kind. Dow Chemical was driven into bankruptcy by lawsuits claiming that the implants caused serious health problems, even though there was strong scientific evidence that it wasn't true. So Nintendo will put a warning on the product, and if anybody tries to sue, Nintendo's lawyers can say, "you chose to use the product even though we warned you."
Mark has been talking about "binocular dysphoria" for some time now (e.g. Wired article from 1994). Thing is, it seems nobody else is.
The effect certainly exists (I've experienced it myself, though only for a matter of seconds), but it remains doubtful as to how significant it is. There are various medical studies that confirm the resiliency of human vision to this type of effect, but it seems no studies have been found or cited that show any lasting problems (with the possible exception of this informal commercial Sega report that Mark was involved in, if it's ever verified).
My take is, if you're a cautious type, there's no need to rush your kids into these things - it's just one form of entertainment, after all. Further study certainly wouldn't hurt. OTOH, artificial stereopsis has been around for literally hundreds of years (some French painter invented the parallax barrier method in 1692) with no reported long-term effects since then. Anecdotally, others here have mentioned viewing stereo material day in, day out for years with no ill effects either, so if there are any ill effects they're probably subtle.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
there jus lucky someone didnt sue them for keeping the risks a secret for so long and wtf why the did they bury them
One-eyed viewers get half a headache.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
This is easy to prove. What percentage of 3D film editors developed strombosis? Is it higher or lower then the national average? We shouldn't fear monger from a 15-year-old study when we can get real data today.
No, I will not work for your startup
Two vaguely on-topic thought:
As it turns out, back then Sega uncovered serious health risks involved with children consuming 3D and quickly buried the reports,
This seems to me to highlight exactly why private and privately funded research are perhaps not such a good idea; we can only speculate how much other valuable knowledge has been buried over the years because it didn't serve to enhance the profit margin of some company. This not merely another stab in the tired debate over whether "private sector" is better than "public sector" - it is about the free exchange of research, something that is crucially important to science.
Another thing this made me think of is something I saw in China; it may have been a holographic movie - it certainly looked that way. It was in a museum exhibition, contained in a big glass-box and in full daylight as far as I recall. It showed a fairly short (10 min) piece about the Chinese resistance against the Japanese, and the interesting thing was that you could walk around it and watch it from behind. That is what I would like to see - these stereoscopic performances are never entirely convincing.
tFA only discusses young children. Won't somebody think of the old children?!
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
...let me assure you that it is an often congenital condition that causes the eyes to be misaligned. The causal effect doesn't work in the opposite direction: misaligning your eyes does not cause strabismus. The only way to cause strabismus without it being a congenital condition is via nerve lesions, and when it develops after early childhood it usually causes double vision, not amblyopia (which is what this article is describing).
Not to mention that while watching a 3D movie, your eyes are fixating on the same point in space, just seeing different images of it--the 3D effect wouldn't work otherwise.
Not to mention that even if strabismus could be caused by intentionally mis-aligning the eyes (a sort of "don't make a face or it will stick that way"), and 3D movies misaligned the eyes, I can't imagine doing it for a couple hours at a time every few weeks would be a huge deal.
I forwarded the quote to an opthomologist I know. Here's his response:
"If someone has strabismus, they just won't be able to see 3D...the 3D sets are not causing strabismus. I don't see any problem...but then I'm not an attorney! Thank goodness!"
Hence why Gene Rodenberry decided to incorporate actual 3d holograms rather using fake 3d illusions... Fake 3D illusions = bad eye development in children
This article just smells of bullshit. Heck, I've seen too many kids doing stereograms under the age of seven, or hell, going by the statements in this article using a viewmaster or a pair of binoculars would cause the same issue (And if you don't believe kids played with viewmasters for hours upon hours when I was a kid you're too easily bored).
I'm not even all that interested, personally, in 3-D (Though I think it would be cool, my 'must have' gland is far from pumped for it.) but this feels like an article that compared a 15 year old, really outdated technology that existed inches from the face with a newer technology that exists 7 foot away, and I'm not even sure I buy those results with the older, outdated technology.
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
"across the country"??? I didn't realise 3D technology was only available within the borders of one certain country...