From: pepke@SCRI1.SCRI.FSU.EDU (Eric Pepke)
Subject: Re: EyePhones Question
Date: 26 Nov 90 15:28:43 GMT
Organization: Florida State University, but I don't speak for them


In article <11675@milton.u.washington.edu> ba-rt451@barney.bgsu.edu 
  (Doug Landers) writes:
> I have been doing research on virtual reaality and have one final 
> question.  For as long as I can remember 'experts' have been telling
> the US public that watching TV close is bad for our eyes, and that
> pregnant women should avoid computer terminals.  Is there something
> special about the EyePhones that don't hurt the human eyes?

The EyePhones use LCD displays, not CRT's.  LCD's run on low voltages and 
so pose no electrocution risk, do not emit even the tiny amount of X-rays 
that CRT's do, and do not emit the currently controversial VLF fields that 
the magnetic beam deflection mechanisms of CRT's do.  So, all those dire
warnings don't apply.

Now, this doesn't mean that having those screens there does not cause 
unpleasant effects.  At minimum, one is going to have the same 
difficulties that one has with 3-D movies.  The screen is at a fixed 
distance and so requires a certain focus, but the binocularity information 
may indicate various distances to the objects on the screen.  Also, people 
often exaggerate the binocularity to make everything look like Dr. 
Tongue's 3-D House of Pancakes.  Unfortunately, all that stuff is wired 
together in your head, and when you get two different pieces of 
information about distance, your brain gets confused.  

Fortunately, none of this seems to do any damage to your eyes or brain, 
unless of course you get so dizzy that you fall over and hit your head.  
When your mother told you that you would go blind if you read in dim 
light, she was wrong.  You might go "Ow!" and then you should probably 
stop, but you won't go blind.

There are very few people who have spent more than a few minutes inside 
one of these things.  Those that have say that after a while you adjust to 
it.  When I get mine working, I'll let you know.

Eric Pepke                                    INTERNET: pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute MFENET:   pepke@fsu
Florida State University                      SPAN:     scri::pepke
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052                    BITNET:   pepke@fsu

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