The Real-Life Dangers of Augmented Reality

Tekla Perry writes: Today's augmented reality devices have yet to go through extensive tests of their impact on their wearers' health and safety. But by looking at existing research involving visual and motor impairments, two Kaiser Permanente researchers find they can draw conclusions about the promise and perils of augmented reality, and point to ways wearable developers can make these devices safer. The researchers write: "Peripheral vision is more important than you might think, because it provides a wealth of information about speed and distance from objects. Central vision, despite the great detail it offers, gives you only a rough estimate of movement toward or away from you, based on changes in size or in the parallax angle between your eyes. But objects moving within your peripheral vision stimulate photoreceptors from the center of the retina to the edge, providing much better information about the speed of motion. Your brain detects objects in your peripheral field and evaluates if and how they (or you) are moving. Interfering with this process can cause you to misjudge relative motion and could cause you to stumble; it might even get you hit by a car one day."

Comments

This could lead to class action lawsuits

[RevWaldo]

They don't even test these glasses on prisoners!
http://i.imgur.com/j2WzJdj.png

.

Re:This could lead to class action lawsuits

[Hussman32]

I want my check for one dollar and NINE CENTS!

This happened to me

[ArcadeMan]

Your brain detects objects in your peripheral field and evaluates if and how they (or you) are moving.

I was in my parked car (angled parking), started my car and I was ready to back up. Before I touched any controls, I had the feeling my car was going forward because the van to my left started backing up but I didn't realize it. My brain was telling me "we're going forward" so for a second or two I panicked and pressed on the brakes as hard as I could and was wondering "why am I still moving?", because I didn't want to run over someone.

Re:This happened to me

[EvilSS]

That story reminds me of when I was a little kid and stood out at the end of a long dock on a windy day. The waves moving on the water suddenly made it feel like the dock was moving on the river. I lunged for a bulkhead to keep me from falling off. Everyone else found it pretty funny at least. I was about to puke.

Re:As with any new tech...

[Austerity Empowers]

There's always idiots who want to make money running studies and put themselves in a position of being the arbiters of what should or should not be, but in most cases we can safely ignore them.

human evolution finds a way.

[nimbius]

As a researcher I can confirm this augmented reality threat is limited to a small minority of individuals. Peripheral vision, for example, has been entirely advanced out of the human genome for the average New Jersey driver. While judgements in relative motion are key for some individuals, the average floridian will be keen to realize movement, perceived or not, is irrelevant on highway 27 as the road itself seems to be immune to the passage of time while in a motor vehicle. Californians should not concern themselves with wearable technology and its impact upon vision and cognitive processes related to distance, as the technology will almost certainly be obsolete by the time they exit the 405 freeway.

Authors have never heard of accelerometers

[Joshua Fan]

From TFA:

The GPS receivers built into wearables already detect the speed of motion (at least outdoors); designers could use them to stop notifications when the user is moving. And many AR wearables have cameras, so image analysis could likewise trigger a safety mode indoors in situations likely to cause trouble.

Do the authors not know what accelerometers are? That makes me question their expertise for writing about this subject.

Re:This just in:

[neilo_1701D]

Wearing glasses that cover up large portions of your view might cover up something important.

That explains Imperial Stormtroopers, then.