Stop being annoyed by someone using a cell phone while you watch a movie, thanks to these innovative “personal screen experience” goggles.

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The Issue:

When multiple people try to view different screens in a dark room, it can be quite annoying.

For example, a person trying to watch an atmospheric dark movie might be annoyed by a person playing on their cell phone, yet the cell phone user might also be constantly blinded by flashes of light from the TV screen (Figure 1).

Fig. 1: These two users (left: using a phone, right: watching TV) are both annoyed by the other’s screen.

Proposal:

We can use a technique from old red-green 3D movies, which take advantage of the fact that green light won’t go through a red filter, and red light won’t go through a green filter.

Specifically, the screen-using individuals will just need to wear goggles with color-filtering lenses (Figure 1), and then set their electronic device to a special single-color mode.

Fig. 2: The phone user wearing the green goggles (left) won’t see any of the red light coming from the TV, while the red-goggled TV watcher (right) won’t see any of the green light from the cell phone.

Conclusion:

Most screens have exactly three pixel sub-element colors (red, green, blue), so this system could be expanded for up to three users by adding blue goggles as well.

It’s possible to expand this system further by creating new screens and goggles that are tuned to very specific wavelengths, but this may not be practical, as it would require developing new screen technology for an admittedly niche application.

PROS: Brings harmony to multi-screen rooms.

CONS: People might miss color. Then again, black and white films were popular for decades, so maybe people could deal with it!