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Posted by neilfrndes 6 hours ago

Apple's weird anti-nausea dots cured my car sickness(www.theverge.com)
389 points | 118 commentspage 4
Curiositry 5 hours ago|
Has anyone made a Linux version of this yet? I think Framework laptops and many thinkpads have accelerometers.
wifipunk 5 hours ago||
Had no idea this was a thing. Have always gotten car sick anytime I'm not driving. They sold me lol
mmooss 5 hours ago||
A relatively simple generic device, mounted on a car's interior ceiling, seems possible: It would project light 'dots' below onto everything the user looks at. Using the car's momentum, the dot movement could be mechanical, though you'd need power for the light.

Not every passenger would want to see the dots; their range could be restricted to the user's seating area or narrower - the user placing objects under the dots as needed. Also, of course the device could be turned on and off.

The dots need brightness and color visible on different surfaces, but those could be easily user-adjusted. Also, I wonder if a grid would work. (Edit: For use with screens, possibly the background reflection of the device, with its grid of lights, would work.)

The real question is, would it work? Does Apple's solution generally work or is the OP just a happy anecdote? Is there more magic to Apple's solution than dots swaying with momentum?

ssl-3 4 hours ago|
There may be a way to do this with a point-source light (a focused LED, or maybe an appropriate laser), and a diffraction grating (which may be already exist in stage lighting world). Such that when the parts move relative to eachother, the projected dots move across the car's interior.

In terms of controls, it seems likely that it should seek to emulate whatever it is that goes on inside the inner ear, so that the input from our eyes better-matches the input from our ears.

I don't know how Apple's dots work (and I don't think my singular iOS device is new enough to try), but if they only respond to acceleration, then doing it this way should help establish mechanical limits: The acceleration (in any direction) of a car is finite, and always returns to zero.

causality0 3 hours ago||
I've always had the exact opposite problem. If I read or use my phone I'm fine. If I try to look around while the car is in motion I get more and more nauseated until after about 40 minutes I can barely walk when we finally stop.
peab 4 hours ago||
Oh wow, this is great!
iJohnDoe 5 hours ago||
Very useful feature for anyone. Probably the lesser known feature because it’s under Accessibility.

It should be a frontline feature to toggle on or off from the command center. It’s there once it’s enabled, but should be there by default.

birdman3131 5 hours ago||
Don't know that I would say anyone. As I have never had any issue with any sort of motion sickness.
nottorp 4 hours ago||
Everyone should know about Accessibility because it's where "reduce pointless animations" and "bring contrast back" are too :)

As for this feature, I found out about it and turned it on, but I don't think it helped me much with reading off the screen while in a car.

It's interesting how many kinds of motion sickness there are. I have no problem reading in trains, or sitting in a car and looking ahead or through the window. But I can't read in a car, even with these dots.

markus_zhang 5 hours ago||
Wait can I use it for rollercoasters?
osiciwjdiwidu 4 hours ago|
Why the hell would you be using your phone during a goddamned rollercoaster ride?
scrollaway 3 hours ago||
Double-down on the thrill-seeking?
LoganDark 5 hours ago||
I love stories like these. Lots of accessibility features like these dots are sort of conceptually very simple and potentially quite weird ideas, IMHO, but when they work, they work like magic. I have a big soft spot for things that make it more comfortable or even possible in the first place to operate a device, whether a user is disabled or not.
josefritzishere 5 hours ago||
Is this from a press release? It's a substance-free product endorsement.
blairbeckwith 5 hours ago||
The Verge is pretty well-known for their ethics policy [1] (they won't take money from any company they talk about) and that actually enables them to highlight interesting stuff like this that companies would never bother to pay to promote.

This article is actually the first time I've heard of this feature and I follow Apple news a lot, so I appreciate it.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/ethics-statement

mschuster91 4 hours ago||
> The Verge is pretty well-known for their ethics policy [1]

Had a read through it, stumbled over this one:

> We do not give subjects of our reporting the ability to preview or approve interview questions, nor do we allow them to review our stories before we publish.

In Germany, that would be considered strange - here it is established good practice in print/written interviews to hand over the final story to the interview partner(s) [1], especially when the interview consists of a lot of industry-specific jargon to make sure that there's some sort of quality control.

[1] https://journalistikon.de/autorisierung/

internet2000 5 hours ago|||
No, it's an older feature. How it works is not super intuitive so it's good to have reports on how it helped someone.
cadamsdotcom 5 hours ago||
Also known as word of mouth.
axus 3 hours ago|
Unlike many obvious inventions, this is novel enough to deserve patent protection.
bitpush 3 hours ago|
Why? Volvo famously gave away seatbelts to everyone so that it benefits the humanity.

Why do you want something useful like this to be with a company? Isnt it better if everyone in the world benefitted from this?

pugworthy 4 minutes ago||
My elderly mother paying $350/month for Eliquis (in the US) would love this sentiment.