Imagine this. You’re driving in a busy town on a sunny midsummer day. The sun’s rays are blasting your eyes, and you can’t see anything on the road. Obviously, you pull your visor down, and you can finally see the road now. However, your vision still isn’t clear yet. There’s a pretty sizable rectangular object that’s obstructing your field of vision. So, you’re driving along, and because of the visor, you don’t see the light switch to red. You go right through the intersection and get smacked by another car. Your car is now wrecked, and you broke both of your legs and one of your arms. However, what if this could have been prevented if you didn’t have to use the visor? What if you could still block the sun and see the road clearly?
Well, this is where “Raccoon Eyes” comes in. “Raccoon eyes” is a new technological innovation, and it works by using a combination of factors. In replace of the visor, there is a transparent LCD screen, and it uses eye tracking technology to see where your eyes are. Wherever it detects your eyes to be, it will turn the smallest part it can of the LCD screen opaque in order to block any sunlight from reaching your eyes only. It follows your eyes, even when you move around. With this invention, you can finally have zero glare from the sun, and you can see clearly while driving.
The main benefit that I see from this invention is mainly the safety aspect. I personally feel like I can’t see much when I have my visor down which isn’t safe if you’re driving, and you have to be constantly aware of your surroundings. An interesting statistic that surprised me is that the chance of an accident during sunny days is 16 percent higher than normal days (Source). This invention will easily lower that number, so it for sure will be helpful.
However, this invention does have some downsides though. First of all, who would want a camera constantly watching them when they’re driving. I know phones have the ability to watch you, but you still can turn the camera away. However, for this invention, the camera constantly tracks your eyes the whole time you’re driving because it has to know which square to turn dark and which square to keep transparent.
Personally, I think that we are progressing into an age where we are relying too much on technology, and we are becoming less self reliant. Our society is becoming more digitized than ever, and it is not necessarily a good thing. Our cars are becoming too automated, but our visors are something that should not be apart of that automation.
Still, this technology won’t impact us for a while, since the product is still in development. However, this virtual visor does signify that we are going to be living in a different world soon which I for sure am not looking forward too.