A small, personal media viewer was recently launched under the promise of revolutionizing the world of portable electronics. The futuristic-looking artifact is an ultra light binocular –cleverly named video goggles- that allows users to watch portable video, television programs, or Internet content displayed onto two full color micro displays positioned right in front of their eyes. The content is received via cellular phone or iPod, and the displayed images are equivalent to a 12-inch screen as seen from three feet away. The binocular is not terribly advanced as an object: a gadget-looking artifact of impersonal appearance, black and neutral, like most objects directly derived from the application of a specific new technology. The main positive feature of the video goggles is thinness: it allows users to look and see around the screen and remain aware of their surroundings, very much in the same way that users of bifocal reading glasses negotiate their attention between the pages of the book they are reading and the environment they see when they look up and over their glasses. This is certainly a step forward from the tyrannical immersive nature of most media electronic gadgets that work by isolating users from their surroundings. Senseless technology? I think so, unless the content would be an empowering and intellectually nutritious addition to the user’s leisure time, rather than a (dumb) way to kill time. After all, common sense is usually too much to ask when it comes to new electronic gadgets.
