#108: Automatic eyestrain relief

My optician advises me that the latest thinking in his field suggests that users of computer screens should adjust their brightness frequently during the day, to compensate for the changing ambient light levels. Failure to do this is, he says, a major cause of eye strain and general fatigue.

Trying to remember to make these adjustments, let alone finding the miniature control button, would be a major pain.

So today’s invention is simply to equip screens with the ability to decrease and then increase their brightness automatically throughout the working day.

Ideally, when setting up a new machine, information entered about your location would be used to compute the required, latitude-based lighting variation.

Although the situation is more complicated with mobile devices, it could be catered for either by having a light meter or a GPS transmitter built in. Failing which, your laptop could locate itself roughly by identifying the network to which it it was connected.