Sunglasses That Block All the Screens Around You (wired.com)

Scott Blew, an entrepreneur and engineer, recalled an article he'd recently read in WIRED about a new kind of film that blocked the light emitted from screens. He wondered if the same technology might work on a pair of glasses, to block the screens that seemed to be everywhere. From a report: He contacted Steelcase, the company that made the Casper screen-blocking film, and ordered a sample. Then he popped out the lenses in a pair of cheap sunglasses and replaced them with the film. Amazingly, it worked: Blew could look through the lenses and see everything -- except for screens, which turned black. Now, Blew and a small team are turning that concept into a real product. Their IRL Glasses, which launched on Kickstarter this week, block the wavelengths of light that comes from LED and LCD screens. Put them on and the TV in the sports bar seems to switch off; billboards blinking ahead seem to go blank. Within three days of launch, the project had surpassed its funding goal of $25,000.

Comments

Re: Wavelength

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they do. There is no reason for using wavelengths outside the maximum sensitivity of each color receptor i the eye. Specialty screens may be different, but they're rare, especially in public.
The tech exists. Two examples:
One type of 3D cinema works by using two slightly shifted RGB images, and having glass for each eye that only blocks the wavelengths of the other image.
A type of projector screen looks black in daylight because it reflects only the three specific wavelengths used by projectors.

Re:Wavelength

[amicusNYCL]

The details are really hard to come by. I guess I should have clicked on the Kickstarter link first, where they do say things like "The polarization is TAC 1.1, Cat 3, UV 400" and "IRL Glasses block LCD/LED screens through horizontal polarized optics".

Instead, like the last time Slashdot ran this story, I thought to myself "surely they didn't just discover polarization." So, instead of Kickstarter, I clicked on the link to "Casper screen-blocking film." Which, by the way, they literally refer to as "cloaking technology." The intro video describes the "inventor" as suddenly remembering something from childhood and "testing his theory about light." The text "polar" is nowhere to be found. The few seconds in the video devoted to how it actually works claims "physics, science, and a little of this *space shuttle launches*". This isn't for sunglasses, by the way, it's "architectural film" for putting on open glass conference rooms so that people walking by can't see the screens inside.

The 7-page Designtex Casper Cloaking Technology Process Overview PDF does not contain the text "polar." But under the section about "validating monitors", it talks about mounting your monitor either "regular," or rotated 90 degrees, but not rotated 45 degrees! They also show a layout diagram and point out that people viewing through glass that is angled 45 degrees to the screen, or people near the wall and viewing almost from the side, will still be able to partially see it.

So, yeah, it's polarization, and for some unknown reason, as if polarization is not some widely-known thing, the design company goes to pretty far lengths to not use the word "polarization."

Here's the list they specifically say it won't "cloak":

Microsoft Surface Hubs
Cisco Spark Board
Direct LED displays
Passive 3D displays
OLED displays
Plasma displays
CRT monitors and displays
Prysm Laser Phosphorous
Displays (LPDs)
Smart Kapp white boards
Traditional white boards
Projection devices

It will "cloak":

Most LED displays 40” and
larger
Telepresence and media:scape
units
Google Jamboard

And it may "cloak":

Small computer monitors
Laptop computers
Notebook computers
Touchscreen computers and
kiosk displays
Displays mounted behind glass