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Even with virtual windows, I think knowing that I can't directly see outside would make me extremely claustrophobic, and I think a lot of people would feel simi
by PrimHelios 8y ago
Even with virtual windows, I think knowing that I can't directly see outside would make me extremely claustrophobic, and I think a lot of people would feel similarly.
All in all this is a cool concept, but I don't think it will be executed well. What happens when my "window" inevitably breaks (as technology is apt to do) and the illusion of being able to see is broken? What about annoying dead pixels or color banding? I can't imagine the displays being used are very high quality.
- Rotdhizon 8y agoI'd think it'd be a disaster if those screens were to malfunction mid-flight and all of the sudden people realized they were in a box with no way to see out. I'm sure that would cause at least one person per flight to have a panic/anxiety attack. It's similar to walking with your eyes closed, you start to panic after a few seconds because you can't see where you're going and lose your sense of positioning/direction/balance. I hate flying, I don't think I could manage to make it on a plane with no windows at all.
- PuffinBlue 8y agoAnd yet, millions of people are able to handle tunnels everyday without incident. Metro lines don't tend to have much visible outside them (if anything at all save for some flashing lights), and there are extended scenarios like the Channel Tunnel where passengers basically don't see anything for over 30 minutes.
- pweissbrod 8y agoif the tunnel was a tin can 3,000+ meters in the sky thats a different story
- PuffinBlue 8y agoOnly in the mind, and I think the large majority of people wouldn't care much for the difference. Just make sure they can plug into Facebook/Instagram/YouTube/Social Media of choice and quite literally most people wouldn't care in the slightest. That's not to say the negative reaction of a small minority wouldn't be vastly increased, but I think the masses would still be perfectly fine.
- taneq 8y ago> Only in the mind You say that like there's anywhere else that it matters
- Cerium 8y agoClaustrophobia of the feet; that's why I wear sandals.
- lou1306 8y ago> That's not to say the negative reaction of a small minority wouldn't be vastly increased The main problem I see with this is that both the small minority and the large majority are locked together inside a tin can speeding through the stratosphere. I'd rather not find out how fast panic might propagate under such conditions.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- mhb 8y agoPeople also do OK in movie theaters, etc.
- reaperducer 8y agoMovie theaters are huge space. Jets are a small space. And I don't have to be in a movie theater for 13 hours straight.
- makapuf 8y agoOk for security reasons or the odd claustrophobic person keep two windows just in case and keep 99% of benefits .
- francisofascii 8y agoThe dimly lit walkway adjacent the track gives assurance an escape is available.
- nkoren 8y agoOn a lot of metros (eg. the deep tunnels in London) this isn't a thing. Doesn't seem to matter.
- jessaustin 8y agoI know a couple of claustrophobic people. It "doesn't matter" because they wouldn't be caught dead in such a location. If it's OK not to have these people on planes (and maybe when everything is accounted it is OK), you're right.
- mynameisvlad 8y agoIf they're claustrophobic enough to the point where they can't even be in that position, then how can they handle a plane as it stands, even with windows? It's not like you can break the window in case of emergencies, and if anything, it's reinforcing the fact that you're 30k feet in the air in a tiny sealed box.
- jessaustin 8y agoI'm not claustrophobic, so I can't explain exactly, but I think the evidence of altitude actually counteracts this effect, rather than compounding it as you suggest. In general, we wouldn't expect psychological maladies to present in reasonable ways.
- PuffinBlue 8y agoPut a window under your plane seat perhaps? /s
- rajathagasthya 8y ago30 minutes is doable. Emirates has 16+ hour long haul flights.
- fancyfish 8y agoAs a guy who gets anxiety on planes, it's because of the claustrophobia. In a tunnel, I am moving freely. In a plane, I'm stuck inside the plane for the duration of the flight, and I can barely move given the only moving you can do is to the lavatory and back.
- anoncoward111 8y agoEh, I hate flying and I have a ton of anxiety. But when I'm on a train in a tunnel, theoretically I can't see anything and it doesn't bother me too much.
- PrimHelios 8y agoThere's a big difference between being on a train in a tunnel and being in a plane several thousand feet in the air.
- anoncoward111 8y agoI am acutely aware of that difference- however, both scenarios are enclosed tubes.
- Asooka 8y agoAnd your brain is wholly enclosed in a sphere anyway, which itself is part in your body, so you kind of spend your whole life encased in a tube with no way out! Thus, rationally proving that claustrophobia is a myth and anyone claiming to suffer from it is no more credible than a flat-earther! yes this is sarcasm
- anoncoward111 8y agoI literally suffer from claustrophobia and agoraphobia you sarcastic nitwit I'm trying to explain to you that a window with some clouds does not alleviate my claustrophobia. So, whether the windows are virtual or not make no difference to me, even if one malfunctions... Jesus
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoIn a train tunnel you could be suddenly be crushed by rock or water. You have time to contemplate your fate in a plane.
- ajnin 8y agoThe train has window. In my experience tunnels are always lit a little bit and you can see the wall passing by. Also it's rare to stay in a tunnel for more than a few minutes.
- qaq 8y ago"I can't imagine the displays being used are very high quality" ??? if they provide the amount of savings outlined I doubt spending extra 200K on quality screens will be an issue
- philipov 8y agoIf they provide the savings outlined, those savings will be pocketed as profit. Productivity improvements don't mean employees get to work less, either.
- Matticus_Rex 8y ago> Productivity improvements don't mean employees get to work less, either. The economics literature begs to differ, though it's not a 1:1, as the improvements are usually specific to an area of the market while the labor market is much less specific, which actually means that the benefits are less because they're dispersed over a wider group of people, marginally improving the lives of people who didn't even have productivity improvements in the work they do.
- qaq 8y agoIt's pretty hard to argue that airlines (at least outside of US) is a very competitive biz.
- billforsternz 8y agoIt's an extraordinarily competitive business.
- PrimHelios 8y agoI really don't expect an airline company to actually spend those savings on quality. Just because they can do something doesn't mean they will
- qaq 8y agoEmirates is not exactly known for cutting corners like that
- finolex1 8y agoThe idea might seem uncomfortable, but realize that on airplanes today most windows are closed for the majority of the flight and people seem perfectly alright with it.
- orev 8y ago“Majority” is not all. Even with a few windows still open you can still get the sense of the outside, and light shifts as the plane moves, etc. There’s a big difference between “majority” and “all”.
- GordonS 8y agoEh? I fly a lot and, with the exception of overnight flights, the windows are open most of the time.
- karthikb 8y agoEmirates (subject of this thread) almost exclusively flies super long haul overnights. Their proposal wouldn’t work for the domestic 2-3 hr hops, but does work well for that 12 hour flight where one person trying to look outside wakes the whole cabin.
- jen20 8y agoThe 787 automatic tinting works for that, too, though.
- EliRivers 8y agoThere may be some kind of step too far somewhere in the space of things that can be done for cheaper flights, but so far everything the airlines do that leads to paying less for a ticket has led to lots of grumbling and no shortage of sales :) No windows in exchange for a discounted ticket; I think people will happily eat it up! If you sit in the middle of a row of ten seats (plus two aisles) the windows were just blobs of light in the distance anyway.
- rcostin2k2 8y agoWhat do you think about few cameras streaming live from different points of the aircraft and the passengers having the possibility to switch between them, or between live and a geosynchronized prerecorded day or night flight with a clear sky ? Would be a perk for the middle aisle seats...
- CalRobert 8y agoThis is already the case on some flights. I know we had this on a KoreanAir A380 from LAX to Seoul a few years ago. The view was kind of underwhelming, for the most part.
- saalweachter 8y agoWhat about a camera pointed straight ahead (maybe slightly downward) on each wingtip, and VR (binocular) headsets?
- andbberger 8y agohttps://xkcd.com/941/ https://xkcd.com/941/
- EliRivers 8y agoI think that if people get a 10% cut in the ticket price, they'll happily sit in a box with no windows and no substitute for windows.
- 8y ago
- fierro 8y agoReally? Most of the time on flights the windows are shuttered anyways, most people open them during landing to watch it go down. I wouldn't be bothered in the slightest by lack of windows
- weaksauce 8y agoI thought you were supposed to open them to let in light just in case you need to evacuate. Normalize your eyes so people can jump down the slide without delay of adjusting to the outside light and to be able to see inside the cabin without aux lighting.
- Grue3 8y ago>What happens when my "window" inevitably breaks What if your glass window inevitably breaks? That actually happened recently and a passenger died.
- PrimHelios 8y agoHow many times a year does that happen? Now how many times a year do you hear about shitty monitors? Hell, on Reddit alone I see 2 or 3 posts about bad monitors every day
- mikeash 8y agoFor those unfamiliar with the incident, note that the window broke because an engine exploded and hit the plane with debris.
- chrisseaton 8y agoWhat do you do at night in a plane at the moment? Do you panic then?
- jasonjayr 8y agoYou're typically above the clouds. You can use the stars to get your bearings.
- chrisseaton 8y agoEvery time I'm on a night flight, everyone just puts their blinds down and goes to sleep. There's no mass hysteria. If you're in the economy section and not in the minority by a window you can't see anyway even when it's daylight. I don't think this is any kind of issue.
- PrimHelios 8y agoI've never been on one. I don't have the opportunity to fly much.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- asdfman123 8y agoBut these will be on planes, meaning they will probably be engineered to hell and back. I'm sure they will almost never fail. It's not like the software world, where we slap on a feature, do some mild testing, and maybe do a little bit more debugging when the user complains about it.
- netsharc 8y agoBut this is the (web-)software equivalent of a positioning of a button using CSS. 1 pixel off? Good 'enuff. Have you never flown on a plane where the audio or USB port is broken? These parts are not mission critical, and "20% of the virtual windows are broken? Good 'enuff."
- asdfman123 8y agoTrue, but having windows at important places is mission critical, so maybe they'll all be well designed as a result.
- mstrum 8y agoJust like wifi internet, it will work flawlessly ;) lol
- ams6110 8y agoNon flight-critical stuff is not engineered to any super high standard. Consider the in-seat video displays, the fold-down tray tables, etc. I was once on a flight where the lavatory door wouldn't stay shut, and it kept banging open and closed every time the plane turned.
- sushisource 8y agoNo one in this thread seemed to pick up on the mention in the article that they wanted to pipe in fiber optics and project. It sounds like a largely analog solution that would be unlikely to break.