Science: Body: Organ
Extensible eyes for humans   (+6)  [vote for, against]

Obviously, these are not really extensible eyes, but replicas of your own eyes, on flexible tentacles.

The contrivance works as a pair of glasses, which fit firmly on the head.

When needing to look at something outside your field of vision, press the button and one lens of the glasses flaps down, allowing the fake eye to extend in a direction controlled by the integral joystick (one on each side obviously).

A loud "beep, beeb, beep" accompanies this action so as not to startle passers-by.

Optical information is delivered by a fibre-optic cable running down the tentacle.

Suitable for people with a crick in their neck, too idle to turn their heads, or for the just very paranoid.

Huzzah*! Another first for British technology.

* not to be confused with the tv series the Dukes** of Huzzah, who drive around in a Dodge Charger and say huzzah at appropriate moments.

** Not to be confused with the Jukes family, bad science anyway****

**** and I have just invented recursive footnoting. see Huzzah*!
-- not_morrison_rm, Nov 15 2014

Artist's impression of the extensible eyes http://bella-ts.dev...gle-Glass-494610650
[not_morrison_rm, Nov 15 2014]

Accessorise! Eating_20Serpent
[pocmloc, Nov 15 2014]

Well....it's a prototype https://drive.googl...nAVzUNoR545fvPwlOWQ
[not_morrison_rm, Feb 02 2019]

Excellent. A pair of these eyes could also give enhanced depth perception, by being set further apart than normal eyes.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 15 2014


I wonder how your brain would cope with the changing separation and angular alignment between the two images.
-- EnochLives, Nov 15 2014


I think it would be fine after the first week or two (as with the inverting glasses).
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 15 2014


The difference here is that your brain has to perform an optical transformation which is continuously changing. I just wonder if you'd even be able to make out a coherent image. What does an object even look like when the angular separation between the images is 90 degrees or greater? Having said that, many animals have highly mobile eye stalks and seem to do alright. Mantis shrimps and snails spring to mind. [+]
-- EnochLives, Nov 15 2014


Exactemente!

Interestingly i have found an artist's impression of the extensible human eye glasses, maybe Google were already working on it, as an add-on for Google Glass. See link.
-- not_morrison_rm, Nov 15 2014


[not_morrison_m], you know that means this may not qualify as an appropriately Original Idea....
-- Vernon, Nov 15 2014


If you were to peruse the link...
-- not_morrison_rm, Nov 15 2014


Fliers of the Apache attack helicopter need to get used to differing focal points as well as differing information in simultaneously presented views. If they can do it I can do it. I want more wavelengths too.

Next up: augmented hearing: Left ear receives sounds upsampled from 20 to 5,000 Hz, right ear receives downsampled from 45,000 to 5,000 Hz, skewed to a happy medium.
-- Voice, Nov 17 2014


Why is there no three-asterisk footnote? - it jumps straight from '**' to '****'.
-- hippo, Nov 17 2014


//I wonder how your brain would cope with the changing separation and angular alignment between the two images.// - EnochLives

//I think it would be fine after the first week or two (as with the inverting glasses).// - MaxwellBuchanan

This is a really interesting question. I think it's more complicated than the inverting glasses case, because you're dealing with two essentially independent images. From what I recall, the left half of each eye's visual field is processed in the right brain hemisphere, and vice versa for the right side. (I don't know what happens in the middle.)
Maybe it's an easy adjustment to make - but then, if it were trivial, why can't we move our eyes independently?
Obviously, some animals do have independently moving eyes - chameleons, for example. Maybe they have differently wired brains.
-- Loris, Nov 17 2014


// I think it's more complicated than the inverting glasses case, because you're dealing with two essentially independent images.//

I assumed that the eyestalks would be looking in the same direction, but re-reading the idea I see that's not the case.

My guess is that, if someone _constantly_ wore something that gave them diverging, non-overlapping views, they would probably adapt. The brain is incredibly plastic.

As to why we haven't evolved this - good question. Perhaps because consistent depth perception is more important than being able to look in two directions at once? (Peripheral vision extends out to about 75° either side, giving us about 150° total vision. With two independent eyes, located where ours are, you get something just over 180°, unless there's a nose in the way.)
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 17 2014


And yet our focal reading area of that range is remarkably narrow.
-- RayfordSteele, Nov 17 2014


//Why is there no three-asterisk footnote? - it jumps straight from '**' to '****'.

Ah well, only clever people can see the ***
-- not_morrison_rm, Nov 25 2014


As I might have mentioned, I'm trying to make the things I dream up.

So, I'm doing this one. Not quite as inconspicuous as I'd hoped, but it only a prototype. I have the nasty feeling it'll figure in the next Ann Summers catalogue.

Link to pics.
-- not_morrison_rm, Feb 02 2019


You're linked images, [nmrm], appear to be more hat-like than extensible eye-like.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 02 2019


Ah, the swing bridge build across the cavern between thought and reality.
-- wjt, Feb 03 2019



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