Slashdot Mirror
Nintendo Warns 3D Games Can Ruin Children's Eyes
Hugh Pickens writes "Fox News reports that Nintendo has posted a cautionary note on its Japanese website that 'vision of children under the age of six has been said [to be in the] developmental stage,' adding that 3D content 'delivers 3D images with different left and right images, [which] has a potential impact on the growth of children's eyes.' The notice went to say that Nintendo recommends that all viewers take regular breaks while watching 3D video or playing stereoscopic 3D games (google translation). Dr. Michael Ehrenhaus, an ophthalmologist with New York Cornea Consultants, thinks Nintendo and Sony may be getting ahead of themselves with these disclaimers. 'It's hard to say that it'll ruin development,' says Ehrenhaus."
Since a while, 3D TV is supposed to be the next big thing. I have been telling people that I doubted a 3D TV could be watched without side effects for as many hours a day that some people watch current 2D TVs.
I mean, it should be fine to watch a 3D movie in a theater once in a while but even then; some complain of headaches or at least of a "disorienting feeling" after watching the latest 3D movies such as Avatar.
I will sure wait for while before getting myself a 3D TV just to better evaluate its effects on the human brain.
Well, at least, Sony seems to be thinking about the children ;-)
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Do they end up larger or smaller in the end?
I'd be more worried about their brains.
Doesn't Nintendo already have warning on gameboy game instruction manuals telling you to take breaks for your eyes every thirty minutes?
who's on first?
This is absolutely no new news. This finding was determined many, many years ago when game developers were looking to build 3d games. There was conclusive evidence that 3d viewing caused serious eye problems and that children should avoid all 3d movies and games or suffer permanent eye damage.
Of course, none of this stuff has been brought up with all the excitement about 3d televisions and game consoles.
The quoted ophthalmologist is an idiot.
Maybe this is just over-cautiousness in an age of lawyers. But there might be something to it.
I have one eye that is much better than the other. The eye doctor told me that, as I was growing, I somehow got in the habit of mostly using one eye and not using the other much; he said that as you grow, your eyes need exercise so they will grow correctly, and one of my eyes didn't get that exercise. Had this been caught when I was younger, I might have had a bandage put over my better eye for a while, to force me to use my worse eye. (But my eye doctor told me that the modern thinking is just to correct the vision of the worse eye; if the brain gets good input from both eyes, it will go ahead and use both of them instead of just one. So the modern thinking is not to cover the good eye, just correct the vision in the bad eye.) My eye doctor never called it "lazy eye" but I wonder if that is what I had.
Probably because of the above, I have terrible 3D depth perception. (I think it has improved a bit since I started wearing glasses that correct my vision from my worse eye, but it's still bad.)
Then there are the 3D headaches. I have read that the problem is that the actual distance to the screen is fixed, but the images can be nearer or farther away from the actual screen. So it makes me wonder if hours of 3D gaming could train a child's eyes to fix on a near distance and be detrimental to development in some way.
There might be nothing to this, but it seems sensible to take precautions. We don't have a large body of medical knowledge yet on the possible effects of 3D gaming, and if I were a parent, I wouldn't dismiss this warning.
It might take many many hours for 3D video to mess up a growing child's vision. But there are children out there who might invest those hours in a really fun 3D game. Heck, my nephew can watch the same movie over and over for hours, let alone a fun video game.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Their objective here is not getting sued rather than preventing eye damage..
I think the Virtual Boy had the same cautionary notes on it
The summary says Sony is the one doing the warning, but the title mentions Nintendo... it's ok though, all Asians look the same!
On a vaguely related note, adorable kittens are excellent model organisms for visual cortex plasticity research. It will be interesting to see if the various quasi-"3d" tricks used in "3d" media have any cool neurological effects on humanspawn(since who seriously thinks that kiddies are going to be taking regular breaks and limiting their gaming to minimal amounts a day?)
And here I thought it was a myth...
Should be:
Seeing as how this is a Nintendo story and if you read TFA the warning was in fact posted on Nintendo's site.
Nintendo gave simlar warnings 15 years ago: Virtual Boy, Nintendo’s Big 3-D Flop, Turns 15
Why bother determining what effects, if any, the technology has on ocular development when you can just add in a disclaimer.
Warning: Reading this post may result in cancer, muscular degeneration, general anxiety, increased blood pressure, warts, rectal bleeding, congestion, stomach pains, feelings of malaise, or general bad shit happening. Read at your own risk.
Kids that age don't really understand "3D" anyway, so they aren't really missing out on anything special by only giving them the standard 2D until they're older. I remember being 7 or 8 when the local tv station had a 3D movie night, and whilst I understood the principle well enough, I didn't really *get* a sense of 3d when I watched it. That realisation happened in highschool when I found a book in the library that had stereophotography in it, and I've been a rabid fan ever since.
The bigger problem is giving things to kids that make them want to stare at an object 1 foot from their face for hours on end. But that's afflicted book-loving outcast kids since time immemorial; this just makes the mainstream kids have to wear glasses too. :)
Odd, my several month old 3D TV has the EXACT same warning on it, but it was made before this article about Nintendo was posted on Slashdot. Either this isn't news at all, or *gasp* my TV is FROM THE FUTURE!
This has been covered half a dozen times yet no one in the media gets it: 3D that is being popularized strains the eyes and messes with the brain. I've yet to see a movie that states you shouldn't drive for 2 hours after watching it to let your depth perception recover- because it has been hacked at with the method of presentation.
Everyone LOVES 3D that really pops- and to get that level of pop the eyes must be further and further strained outwards. While this is fine for the short term, immediate needs doing it for any length of time is a huge stressor.
Unfortunately I am at home and don't have any of the papers that were published in the late 80's and 90's about these issues. Sega (damn memory) had a unit that was going to be 3D capable but ended up canning it for a variety of issues- including the health of children. Obviously now adays that isn't a concern and money, as always, comes first.
I know of some military groups that prohibit their members from operating a vehicle for 8 hours after performing 2-4 hours of stereo work. They must be driven home by a buddy. That's not over-reacting in my opinion.
Crewmen of submarines must recover their 3D vision after spending so long cooped up with nothing 'far' available to be seen. They're also banned from operating vehicles while in port for some duration.
Why is it any surprise that a developing brain can be traumatized by seeing something that it wasn't wired to see?
Go ahead- screw your kids up. Mine won't be. I've got hundreds of other ways to mess them up :)
I also have one, still in a box and partly used... it's good to know if it's flaked out there's a fix that can be done. Being from fifteen years ago or so, I figure it should have solder joints the size of my fist I can easily re-do.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
3D content 'delivers 3D images with different left and right images, [which] has a potential impact on the growth of children's eyes.'
This is not only false, but illogical as well. The whole purpose of having two eyes at different locations is to see two different images at once and see 3D. Showing the eyes two different images is exactly what should be happening. The problem is actually with the fact that a 3D video will have arbitrarily-selected and static areas of focus, while human eyes typically handle the focusing on their own. Because of this, uninformed people will watch the movie and accidentally (and usually repeatedly) try to change their focus and strain their eyes because the image does not change focus at all. If people would understand this and focus solely on what the video is focusing on, they typically wouldn't get headaches, provided the shuttering/refresh rate is also suitable.
I recently decided to explain this to my friends, and all of a sudden two of my friends who always had headaches after 15 minutes were able to watch a full movie, with off-the-shelf consumer 3D technology nonetheless. Go ahead; try it - just make a conscious effort to not focus on anything except what the video is focused on and watch the eye strain nearly disappear.
As it turns out, adorable kittens are a very useful model organism for visual cortex plasticity...
It will be interesting to see what, if any, strange neurological effects early and heavy exposure to the various more-or-less-unknown-in-nature quasi-3d tricks used for "3d" media have on the visual cortexes and/or eye muscles of the humanspawn...
looks like someone should link this in ...
http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/06/26/2059205/3D-Displays-May-Be-Hazardous-To-Young-Children
This is a GOOD THING. Usually corporations intentionally ignore or even fail to research the harm of their devices; not only have they found out there is potential harm but they are ACTING on it by warning people. Yes, this is likely due to lawsuits but for a change they are actively trying to avoid them instead of spending money on P.R. and fake think tanks to protect themselves after problems are found by the public like most large corporations do today. BP comes to mind as an extreme example.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
thinks Nintendo and Sony may be getting ahead of themselves with these disclaimers. 'It's hard to say that it'll ruin development,' says Ehrenhaus."
From the Lawyers' perspective, it is probably a really better idea to take a conservative view of exercising caution, and warning customers about possible threats that might not exist.
Than to just throw caution to the wind, let the technology fly, and get sued for billions, if negative effects are discovered later.
By warning up front, the parents will be liable.
It will be as if the technology was known to be able to cause harm if misused, and PROPERLY warned about.
Now if someone overuses 3D games without breaks, and the unstudied effects of excessive use turn out to be harmful, then Sony/Nintendo's responsibility for the bad thing that happened is less, because they did the responsible thing by specifically warning that the the excessive usage without breaks MIGHT be harmful, AND structuring of the warnings as if it was already known harmful.
A less optimistic possibility is Sony/Nintendo know somehow it is in fact harmful, through internal studies, and they're keeping the info secret. That means Ehrenhaus might not have access to the information required to properly evaluate whether Sony/NES are getting ahead of themselves or not.
... I guess they are just doomed to go blind.
Huh! Could this much-bemoaned "litigator culture" full of coffee-scalds and warning labels actually produce some sort of mysterious, unexplainable corporate incentives which compel them to (now and again) act in line with the best interests of the public? I can't imagine how! It is a mystery for the ages.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
I think I'm beginning to get a handle on the damage 3D could do. Our everyday vision depends on our eyes maintaining the correct alignment (parallel I think, though I'm not absolutely sure about that). The brain then uses the differences in the images from eye to another to infer the distances to various objects, creating our sense of dimensionality. With real physical objects, if one eye goes out of alignment, the brain will immediately get a sense of this, causing the eye to go back into alignment. When watching 3D movies, each eye receives a different picture, thanks to the polarized glasses, and the brain interpolates dimension out of this. If say, the left eye goes out of alignment, then the left eye will still receive nearly the same picture, except that it will be laterally displaced. I can imaging that the brain would be able to shift the picture laterally back in order to produce a 3D effect. Thus, the eyes and brain could successfully build a 3D image even though the eyes are misaligned. If our visual system became habitualized to this, it could result in a lazy eye in some susceptible people.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Reality delivers different left and right images. So reality must be bad for visual development also.
Except there's no proof the systems actually do damage, and the warning is purely a CYA move with absolutely no real-world impact (it's a warning label, rather than modifying the technology, or putting in hard limits on time use) since it relies exclusively on parents actually parenting. Odds of that? My calculations are putting them at slim-to-none.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
They have nothing to lose by disrecommending games for small children under six, because those kids are growing up fast.
If 3D games were found to harm people's vision at any age, you can bet they would cover that up.
It's really bizarre that every comment that has pointed out this error has been modded down to -1. Facts are overrated, I guess.
When I was your age, I went blind the old fashioned way: By jerking off. And I liked it!
It's because slashdot is now a meeting place of old people, who can't take new technologies without complaining, and if needed be, they are dragged into it , kicking and screaming. I'm 30 myself, and every time I see some new tech, the comments point out:
- It's not going to work
- The old way is better
- It's commercially inviable
- some retarded plural of virus
- uncanny valley
- drm
So, yeah, 3d is a bad tech, will never work and harms your eyes. Nothing is cool around these parts anymore. If you find something cool, we will snob you.
Carl Bunn
There's no such thing as a Visual Boy
There is, but Nintendo wants it pulled for a different reason.
3D is harmful, especially for children. It is well known. Hollywood doesn't want to hear about it because they expect to make so much money off of it, nor do TV manufacturers, cable/sat, or content providers. I would rather see higher than 24 fps for films. Action scenes don't have to be blurry.
Reality also delivers images at different focal depths, as other people have pointed out in comments to this story.
OR, better yet, take the warning labels off everything, and let the problem solve itself?
imagine this.. for Nintendo and Sony to give out such warning... Considering that Nintendo has been experimenting for years with 3D tech.. I would take that as a serious warning. These companies have R&D, etc.. I don't think this is just "guesswork". Now, this Dr Michael Ehrenhaus doesn't agree. :)
I wonder who pays him to make such a statement. Maybe Toshiba.. or any other 3D TV vendor?
What makes Sony think 3D may hurt the growth of children's eyes? Is there any research? And of course we should all take regular breaks from 3D or any other type of electronic games and maybe, say, toss a ball in the park, or something.
You willing to bet your own kids' vision on that?
There may not be any proof as yet, as the technology is still in its nascent stages, but I'd much prefer that the companies, in covering their collective backsides, acknowledge a possible risk than try to cover it up or deny the existence of any risks whatsoever.
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
Pure and simple.
By making this statement they go a long ways toward absolving themselves of blame in some future unforseen lawsuit. Who knows, maybe 5 or 10 years from now, some researcher will discover something.
The 3d fad pops up every 10 years or so- I will be happy when this cycle is over.
That would actually be the engineer's fault, bad user interface, or probably the salesman's. Holy shit! How about, professional liability for sales people! You know, instead of just engineers, corporations, lawyers, and doctors, it would almost be like America, with integrity again!
Except there's no proof the systems actually do damage,
That's essentially false. There is proof that bad 3D can cause damage. There is no proof that the new 3D is "bad" because testing it requires subjecting children to a test that has, in the past, damaged children. It's unethical to determine if the current 3D technology will cause the same problems proven to have occurred in previous 3D technology.
So your statement is true in that not every possible combination of stereoscopic 3D has been proven to cause damage, so there's no proof that Blu-Ray 3D movies will cause damage. There's proof that 3D causes damage and no proof that this version doesn't. So, feel free to say it however you want. The technology used has been proven to cause damage, and they've not proven this one to be any better than the old versions.
Learn to love Alaska
Except Sega had this tech and knew the problems in 1980s.
People seem to think that this is Nintendo (summary went and confused people by claiming it was sony) covering their ass. On the other hand, the 3DS is 3D but not stereoscopic 3D. The type of 3D used by the 3DS appears not to be covered by this warning.
Does a line appended to your comment give your post meaning in and of itself, or only in relation to those without?
It's well known that stereoscopic images aligned "beyond infinity", which force the eyes to cross to fuse the image, induce headaches. This can happen inadvertently when images aligned for adult eye spacing are viewed by kids.
Then there's the problem that watching a stereoscopic image with the head angled induces eye alignment problems. That's unlikely in theaters, but lie on a couch and watch a 3D TV. You will not have a pleasant experience. Maybe stereo glasses should switch to mono mode when they're more than a few degrees off vertical.
Stereoscopy is kind of bogus, anyway. Beyond a few meters, real-world stereo effects are nil. Fake zoomed-in stereoscopy is inherently kind of weird. Incidentally, if you were bothered by Avatar, realize that Avatar is about as good as stereoscopic 3D gets. Cameron uses it well, with restraint. Nothing in Avatar appears in front of the screen. Most filmmakers overdo it. Most Disney "Real3D" is really fake 3D, applied by segmentation, depth adjustment, and compositing in post. It shows.
There's a worry that kids exposed to too much fake 3D early in life may never get the relationship between stereo separation, depth of focus, and stereo from motion firmly etched into their brains. We'll know in a decade.
Please point to this "Proof".
You can't go on stomping your foot like a spoiled child with out providing at least a citation.
Pictures, or it didn't happen.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Given that I was under ten years old for most of the 80s, I'd really like to see those scientific studies. Honestly, America is so sue-happy right now, practically anything and everything I see from a company's lawyers I assume is covering their company's ass, and not in any way representative of actual scientific study. I would point out that most (if not all) cellular companies have similar warnings for their cell phones absolving them of any health issue due to radio waves (despite the lack of any valid scientific study linking radio waves to health issues).
To put it another way, [citation needed].
Remember, you can't look dignified when your having fun! Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out of it alive
I just want to point out that your allusion to corporations of the 1980s being concerned with the welfare of consumers is rather amusing.
Pictures, or it didn't happen.
You accuse me of being a child, then make a reference to porn from a childish forum. Obviously, it doesn't matter what I say, even if I gave you gold-plated proof, you'd just quip away and pretend I didn't say anything.
Learn to love Alaska
The article is missing the point here. Nintendo is making a self serving argument here. The Syndrome is question occurs only in stereoscopic 3D. it does not occur in the "point of view" 3D that the Nintendo implement with it's motion sensors. There both eyes see the same image. the 3D effect arriese because the images tracks the motion of the controller itself, as though you were looking through a window pane.
Second, I would suspect that the Wii does not have enough horse power to generate steroscopic 3D (compared to the Playstation).
Third, even if the Wii could do it there would be another problem for the Wii. Given a 3D world you'd want to move in it right? But the wii controllers are not like the Kinect or Sony wands. The Wii only knows how you are pointing the controller, it does nor know the detailed spatial position or orientation of your body. So the effect would likely be disorientingly awful.
Hence Nintendo is playing this up.
It is however a supposedly real effect.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
So no citation then.
Fuff off and run away then.
You've proven yourself a blowhard and your bluff has been called.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
pass it on....
It's just another method to re-sell the same shitty movies over again with a new twist..... in between remaking classics into embarrassing trash.
Nintendo had a 3D system way back as well.
"If man were meant to fly, he'd have been given wings?" Get serious. People are immensely robust. Technology shouldn't scare you so readily, it's mostly harmless. TV, movies, and 3D stereoscopy have all been around for more than a few decades. We see no evidence of harm. If it makes you happy to wear a tinfoil hat, be aware that they're not considered stylish-- but hey, marketing opportunity. Maybe if you paste a little lizard on it.
All I read in the links is about Nintendo, with links claiming that Sony said so. WTF?
I can back this up 100%. I work in medical imaging (20+ years), where stereo (3D) viewing of radiographs and other medical images is fairly widely used in various specialties. Whether the stereo viewing is done un-aided or using various aids such as special stereo binoculars or displays, there is an effect to your vision when you have performed "synthetic" stereo viewing for even a short time. It's very taxing on your eyes and brain, because they are being forced to "work" in ways which are un-natural. This synthetic 3D is very different from what our eyes and brains have learned over the years of our own life and indeed the thousands of years of human development and evolution.
I would not allow my kids to use these "3D" devices as being popularized today, unless they are old enough that it will not likely affect their vision and brain development. While we have not yet established an appropriate age where damage is unlikely to be permanent, I would say it's at least 12-14 years old. Any younger and it's more likely that extensive use of these 3D technologies will cause permanent damage.
Note that I would not include 3D movies viewed in a theater. It's a matter of viewing distance, where the rays of light enter the eyes at near parallel, narrow angles. At a short viewing distance, such as at home, the angles are MUCH greater and the work needed to be done by your vision system (including brain) is much greater at these short viewing distances. There is also the time factor, a movie tends to fall within a 90 minute viewing period. 3D games can and will be played much longer than that and possibly several days in a row. We don't go see 3D movies every day, multiple times a day, to have enough exposure. Plus the exposure is less severe due to the distance and angles as stated.
I definitely will not be buying into this 3D hype for home use. Not for my home theater setup and not for my PC and console gaming. I have seen several 3D movies in the past year but none of them really blew me away, as in I really have to see this movie in 3D. Sure, some of the effects were pretty cool, but it's really only a gimmick to draw people into theaters. It doesn't add anything really meaningful to the experience for me, and it's not because I do not see 3D well. Some people's vision is less susceptible to seeing synthetic 3D in full effect. I predict this round of 3D will fail long-term, just as it has every other single time before (people seem to have short memories).
It's fine for medical and scientific use under controlled circumstances, but controlled circumstances do not really exist in the home. Much more study needs to go into the long-term effects of synthetic 3D over long periods of time before it can be considered safe. And appropriate guidelines need to be developed for safe use.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/06/26/2059205/3D-Displays-May-Be-Hazardous-To-Young-Children?from=rss
I think this is what you wanted:
http://www.sega-16.com/VictorMaxx%20Stuntmaster%20Ad.php
This isn't a problem just because you "think" it's a problem.
The brain can train itself to deal with changes in perception almost instantly.
Even when you do something stupid like turn everything upside down http://wearcam.org/tetherless/node4.html the brain just makes it work right again.
People won't detrain their normal viewing of the world with 3d TVs, they'll train themselves in seeing 3d from screens as an extra on top of their training in 3d in real life.
And that it's all Obama's fault.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You statement is in no way related to the topic at hand. We don't strap wings on kids, charge them 20$, and toss them off a cliff.
Yes, people as a whole are robust. I'm not saying they won't recover or deal with any impediments that have been created in their brain by it's being retrained on how to see. What I'm saying is that there are scientific studies that have documented the problems and it would be a wise parent that heeds the warnings.
Don't believe me or the research? Fine. It's your own nightmares you make for your kids.
With all this controversy about 3-D and vision, what about kids growing up watching stories on their View-Masters?
You don't need 3D vision to drive (or for much of anything besides maybe very fine motor work (i.e. surgery), catching a baseball, or seeing Avatar). I've had a lazy eye for as long as I can remember and outside of maybe being a bit more cautious of traffic at intersections, you'd never know. Admittedly, I can't be sure of what I'm missing out on, but I'm pretty sure you (and those in the military anecdotes) are overreacting.
Everyone LOVES 3D that really pops- and to get that level of pop the eyes must be further and further strained outwards.
You completely fail at basic geometry. Looking at something near forces to "cross" your eyes : point them closer (not further) to make your sight aim at closer object. And "at your face" objects are exactly simulated that way in 3D media.
You never point the eyes further outward. They are either point both forward parallel, when you look toward at infinity, or crossing inward when you look at closer object.
Why is it any surprise that a developing brain can be traumatized by seeing something that it wasn't wired to see?
It's not a surprise : 3D is a relatively new gimmick for the large population. Therefore, the older generation who didn't get exposed to it will panic and over-react as with anything else new, as usual.
(Note: In the past people used to say that reading books would utterly damage children's sight and brains. But nowadays, aren't you happy when your child is reading some ?)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Also, I doubt that 3D will cause "lazy eye", which is amblyopia. I do know that children with strabismus, such as my daughter, should not watch 3D movies because of the problems with depth perception that is induced by the artificial 3D effect.
By this logic, ordinary TV and movies could be even more damaging to children's eyesight and related neural pathways. On TV and on the movie screen, objects are depicted at all sorts of "distances" from the viewer, but the eyes always focus at the screen at the same depth! They are always directed at the same angle relative to each other, and never cross or uncross at all like they would when viewing the actual scene the movie depicts.
With a 3d movie, the eyes do cross and uncross like you'd expect in order to view closer or farther objects. This actually stimulates the muscles more dynamically than a regular movie would. Of course your eyes have their own individual focus which still doesn't change since the movie screen is actually at a constant depth, but that's true of regular movies as well.
I'm not saying that we should ignore any potential problems. It just seems like a lot of uninformed hand wringing at this point, similar to what every generation does about the new technology and culture their kids get. After all, there have been 3d games and movies and kids toys for decades. If there were any actual cases of stunted development, I assume these articles would be pointing to them instead of making unsupported claims like "users of all ages can succumb to the perils of 3D experience." (Although the article paints a pretty reasonable picture overall, quoting an ophthalmologist who says it's overblown.)
I remember when I was in grad school 10 years ago the experimental 3D systems would give me horrible headaches after a few hours of use. I remember thinking that if we shipped 3D systems like those to average consumers it would be a disaster. Other grad students reported vertigo and one even vomited after an extended session.
The saving grace of these systems might be that they aren't fully immersive so you would avoid the vertigo we felt standing inside the CAVE. The headaches came from the shutter systems we used. I'm glad 3D in theaters today uses some sort of polarized light these are much more pleasant to look at.
I think as long as 3D remains a "treat" instead of a default experience we'll be okay. The fact remains that no matter what the system used to produce 3D illusions on 2D surfaces we are ultimately causing a pair of binocular eyes to see objects that are not there. Seeing things that aren't there just sounds bad for you.
[signature]
I don't know about your other comments, but speaking as a former crewman from the USS Georgia (729 Gold Crew) everything you said about submarine crews is incorrect. We do have to wait 30 minutes after being exposed to white light before we go out so we get our dark vision, but that is about it. (Btw, we don't go lengthy times with nothing "far" to see. We regularly look out periscopes and surface to get fresh air and out of the inside of the sub.)
What's childish is deciding to wuss out of a debate because someone mentioned a 4chan meme. oh WHATEVER can you DO, ALL DISCUSSION FOREVER IS RUINED.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
And in that case, don't buy them video games anyways! They need to exercise their fine motor skills at that age. They need a physical toy like lego.com or rokenbok.com Figure it out people!
No, it was the fact that someone being childish accused me of being childish. I don't waste my time with hypocrites. In my experience, they are out to create responses, rather than have a discussion. He killed the discussion, not me. I just informed him of why it was dead.
Learn to love Alaska
Get off my lawn, kid ;)
Stereophotography isn't 3D, and it's not new; I have a John Wayne movie from the 1950s that's stereoscopic, and on VHS. Yes, the tech improved -- way back in the seventies when the red-green glasses were replaced with polarized lenses. But stereoscopy has been a recurring fad since long before I was born. It isn't new.
When we have holographic displays, THEN I'll sit up and take notice. Holography actually is real 3D, but I may not live long enough to see it, there are some big hurdles to jump first (such as the insane resolutions required for holography). I have seen holographic film photos, in a physics class back in the late '70s, and they were awesome -- except that they were monochrome and even with film, appeared grainy.
Free Martian Whores!
"Pictures or it didn't happen" is a perfectly idiomatic, Internetty way of saying "provide support for your claim". That said, I apologize for that guy's tone. It was inappropriate, and you haven't been "stomping your foot like a spoiled child." I am actually interested in seeing your links, if you have them. I suspect your point might even be correct. So please, for the benefit of any number of Slashdot readers who are more interested in the facts than the personalities presenting them, humiliate this guy by proving him wrong, rather than just quitting 'cause he's a jerk. I wanna see what you got.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
And here i thought the "new" 3D was just a silly rehashed gimmick from 20 years ago, oh wait.. it is! Not only that, but its potentially harmful over time, sweet!
Sega pulled an earlier 3D product in the mid 90s because problems were observed in kids who used the device frequently. Took me forever to find links right now -- it used to be easy to pull up the documents about this on Google, but as of today, all the keywords point at today's announcement. This is the problem with relying upon Google to remember things for me. :-)
But I did find one article about it finally:
Search within this article for "Sega"
http://markpesce.posterous.com/split-screen-how-safe-is-3d-tv-screen-play-di
There are a number of write ups about Sega's experience, and that experience is what is spawning a lot of the concern from Sony and Nintendo.
If man was meant to fly, he'd have been given a big enough brain to invent a 747.
Free Martian Whores!
Ah... and here's the Slashdot coverage of it from earlier this year:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/06/26/2059205/3D-Displays-May-Be-Hazardous-To-Young-Children
An interesting article.
But again, claiming permanent damage in children is pure speculation. They readily admit the children's brain will learn how to interpret the fake 3D in a few hours of video or games, but then they turn around and deny the ability to unlearn when the set is turned off.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
In other words - for "normal" TV/etc. - as far as the eyes are concerned - it's like watching ... a fairly flat wall. Not for the visual processing part of the brain of course (that shouldn't matter much, considering how many different spatial arrangements - including illusion / impossible arrangements - it can interpret), but there's nothing particularly weird for parts which control the eyes, and for the eyes themselves.
Now consider stereoscopy (NOT "3D"!) - as you say yourself, one aspect of eye must work as if it were one type of scenario (a scene with depth) - but different aspect must work like for a flat wall. The situation is fairly dissimilar from "normal" depth perception. Oh, and the parallax - it's not just incomplete / nonexistent (as in flat images), it's utterly wrong. It not only stimulates (stresses, I would say) the visual system "more dynamically than a regular movie would" - it does so more than real 3D scene. In a fairly new way. One to which no visual system was ever adapting over the hundreds millions of years, in all of our ancestors.
Yes, stereoscopy toys are available for a long time. In fact, one golden era of such movies was in 50s. Even better - "3D" sister of photography is only few years older than its sibling, both at ~150 years. How for most of this time stereoscopy remained mostly a gimmick speaks best for itself, IMHO. For photography, it is fairly easy and inexpensive to do for a long, long time... now, did you ever make even one such photo? Do you know anybody who did?
One that hath name thou can not otter
"Thousands" of years of human development and evolution? Shouldn't you know better, in medical field? ;p
One that hath name thou can not otter
There is proof that bad 3D can cause damage.
Obviously now adays that isn't a concern and money, as always, comes first.
If second part of this sentence didn't contradict first, I could almost suspect how you simply display the typical myth of "good old days"... (phobia of present times / longing for one's youth / "the world was better" is an old phenomena - we have written examples of "the moral and intellectual demise of youth, that we're witnessing, will surely doom the civilisation soon" at least since Ancient Greece)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Of course there mustn't be any definitive opinion on whether there is some damage to kids, but they're playing the safe way:
1. Put a disclaimer against kids 0-6 years old playing their games.
2. Release a bunch of games for that exact target audience.
3. Expect the parents to accidentally the warning tags.
If any parent were to suite the companies for their kids suddenly going blind, they could argue that they had already warned against it.
Don't let kids under six play those games. It really makes sense when you think about it, you know.
Heck, I don't know anyone who'd have their kids play video games before they were at least five. It's just not a good thing to do.
I am not devoid of humor.
AK Marc makes a good insightful point; both of you are filling gaps in your assessment of the other with guesses based on prior experience or merely protecting your egos.
As somebody who reads a lot of stuff, including journals; I can say that its pretty petty to accuse somebody else of lying and asking them to mount a defense with citations because YOU don't care enough about the truth to do it yourself.
Its a common ploy by people with brused egos or who are too LAZY to insult others into doing their work. Unless you want to attack the opponents character (play politics) with the matter.
If you think they might be lying or wrong about something why don't you get off your ass and see if you can find the information they are referring to??
I can't cite every source on the spot of everything I've ever read in the past. Some sources are proven wrong or misleading after people have read them and it isn't their job to review all corrections on everything they've ever read about (and how could they?) Somebody has to tell them about the source or the information at some point or they keep believing what they read.
Don't let your ego and anonymous identity remove so much tact that you just add to the already huge amount of dysfunction of web forums. You should have just asked for a hint, its likely if somebody could actually recall a source from memory they'd type it into their posting; a kind question might get the person to look it up or give a hint so you can find it.
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