Hasta La Gadget!

by John Timmer

Consumer electronics companies are betting that 3-D is going to be the next big thing, and several are heavily promoting the latest 3-D televisions. But the advent of consumer-level 3-D has been accompanied by concerns about what effect the hardware might have on the human visual system. Although there’s no evidence of harm, most of these companies have issued disclaimers warning against the use of this hardware by children.

Now, Nintendo Japan has joined them, warning against the use of its upcoming Nintendo 3DS system by anyone under the age of six.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the company posted the warning on its Japanese website in advance of an event promoting the device’s February release. According to its translation, the company is warning that, “For children under the age of six, looking at 3-D images for a long time could possibly have a negative impact on the growth of their eyes.”

We’ll hope that the “growth of their eyes” bit is just a bad translation. Concerns about the impact of 3-D are based on the fact that, outside of holograms, no system is actually capable of generating an actual 3-D image. Instead, various systems work by creating the illusion of depth by carefully manipulating the information received by the human visual system. In effect, 3-D involves playing tricks on our ability to perceive depth.

None of this will harm the actual eye itself, much less any growth it undergoes during childhood. The concern is that the portions of our visual systems that reside in the brain are adaptive; they adjust to the information we receive, and can remap connections in order to operate more efficiently on a typical input.

This is especially true in infants, as the visual system is still developing at the earliest stages of life. This ability to rewire our visual system on the fly is behind the 3-D health concerns. If our brains are fed a heavy diet of 3-D, they might start adjusting to process it more efficiently, and that process could come at the expense of regular vision.

As of now, however, there is no research indicating that there’s a anything to these worries. The last time a 3-D panic occurred—and they seem to occur every few years—we did an extensive literature search, and checked papers that people had pointed to as evidence of the technology’s harm. Most addressed other topics, and the few studies that were relevant were small and involved short-term disorientation in adults.

In short, Nintendo’s warning may be reasonable and cautious, but it doesn’t reflect a known health risk.

So far, factors other than health worries seem to be affecting the sales of 3-D televisions, and it’s probably safe to say that the sales of the 3DS will also be driven by the hardware, the price, and its game library.

This story was written by John Timmer and was originally published on Ars Technica.

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Oh boy — get ready for years of competing studies and hysterical news reports claiming that 3D is either life-threateningly dangerous or perfectly safe. (Cellphone radiation, take a backseat.) Today’s delightful round of panic comes courtesy of Nintendo’s Japanese warning guidelines for the 3DS: players are advised that 3D gameplay causes eye fatigue more quickly than 2D gaming and are told to take a break after 30 minutes of play — and you should quit immediately if you get ill, which makes sense. Nintendo also says that children under six shouldn’t use the 3D mode at all, since their eyes are still developing, and that parents can use controls built into the 3DS to lock it into 2D mode for children.

Continue reading 3D is dangerous / not dangerous: Nintendo 3DS warning label edition

3D is dangerous / not dangerous: Nintendo 3DS warning label edition originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Dec 2010 12:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s never too early to start thinking about next year’s Christmas wish list, right? Good news for those of you who didn’t get exactly what they wanted from Santa–GameStop has opened up preorders on Nintendo’s eagerly anticipated 3DS portable gaming device.

The console, which was formally announced in the US at E3 this summer, has yet to be priced (Engadget is guessing that it’ll run around $300–sounds about right to us), but by plunking down some cash, you can be the first on your block to score one.

The magic SKU number is 020132 for those who can’t wait to spend money on the thing–of course you won’t actually be able to get your hands on the thing until March…

If there’s one event that’s immune to being overhyped, it’s the annual January expo of everything consumer electronics, known to you and us as CES. The only downer to this geek endurance test is that we’ve felt it’s been lacking a little on the gaming front lately, which is why we’re so giddy to hear the news that Nintendo will be rejoining the ranks of exhibitors over in Las Vegas in a few weeks’ time. CES 2011 will be the first time in 16 years that the console sales leader has deigned to pitch up a stand at America’s biggest tech show, with our suspicion being that the event will be used as an opportunity to remind the world about the upcoming 3DS handheld. Or to drop that Wii HD bombshell we’ve all been waiting for. Yeah, right!

Continue reading Nintendo returning to CES after a 16-year absence

Nintendo returning to CES after a 16-year absence originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Nov 2010 14:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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