I saw a story on the web today that made me really start to wonder about some of the advances we are making in technology. I have always thought that the main purpose of technology was to make the life of the average human a little easier and more enjoyable. Everyday I see more people becoming more comfortable with technology, which for the most part is good. As an example, my dad got a Sony Dash for Christmas and now this 87 year old is checking Facebook more often than me. If you ask my mother, she would not say this is a good thing since he finds it necessary to share Facebook updates with her every minute or so. I think this is very cool. Technology is no longer only for the geeks. It is becoming the property of the average human.
But let’s get back to the story I was talking about. It is a story that makes you stop and wonder if we are becoming too comfortable with technology and willing to allow it to have more control than we should. The title sounded great, “3D No Glasses.” For some this is the holy grail of 3D video. The story went on to explain that the way many of the 3D glasses work is that they rapidly open and close so that one eye is never really seeing the video. Since they open and close so fast, you really don’t notice it. So how are they achieving this without glasses? Small devices are attached near the temple of your eye and they causes your eye lids to open and close rapidly. If you think this sounds weird, wait until you see what it looks like. Checkout the video:
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/Uef17zOCDb8" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
Some may say this is fake and for all I know it may turnout to be, but it still makes me wonder. Are we becoming so comfortable with technology that we are willing to let a device control functions like eye movement? Who knows what the long term effects could be. For myself, I’ll just stick to the glasses.