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esskay 3 hours ago

RIP to every single camera in existence if that happens. Lidar is awful with damaging camera lenses.

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hinoki 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I had to look this up, because I had never heard of it. How could a lens be damaged by infrared lasers?

It turns out it’s the sensors that are easily damaged by high powered lidar lasers.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/keeping-lidars-from-zapping-ca...

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shinycode 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There is complains that some Volvo cars damaged iPhone cameras. It’s not even clear if Apple takes those under warranty. We’ve seen car review YouTubers that got their iPhone camera sensors damaged captured (by a second camera) while reviewing

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mikeyouse an hour ago | parent [-]

One such review where Marques shows how it happened to his phone

https://youtube.com/shorts/oeHtfMFdzIY?si=cANJDT5BLfdd9ZUT

	▲	RobotToaster 24 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		One highlight from the video, he says most cameras are fine, it's just iphones that don't have a very good IR filter. Which sounds correct, in my experience most cameras have pretty substantial IR filters that have to be removed if you want to photograph IR. I also wonder if the smaller sensor size on phones contributes, since the energy is being focused onto a smaller spot. Either way, for that to happen he was filming the LIDAR while active, for a decent amount of time, from right next to the car. I assume under normal conditions it wouldn't be running constantly while the vehicle is stationary?

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b112 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If this is true, the eyes are no better. Especially as it can't be seen, who will look awsy? And at night, with open irises?

There was someone who had his eyes damaged by sitting next to a heater.

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SkiFire13 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The biggest concern is not photographic cameras but rather the video cameras mounted on autonomous cars to gather crucial information the cars need to drive themselves.

So they don't care if that breaks my phone camera? Wtf?

	▲	cyanydeez an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The Epstein classes argument is: If youre not my property, why should We care?

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pedro_caetano 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Is there any deeper study on long term effects regarding retinal damage?

I would imagine, even with safe dosages, there would be some form of cumulative effect in terms of retinal phototoxicity.

More so if we consider the scenario that this becomes a standard COTS feature in cars and we are walking around a city centre with a fleet of hundreds of thousands of these laser sources.

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eurekin 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Some lidar units simply use the wavelength that the human eye is opaque to.

The grandparent comment is about camera lenses with little to no near infrared cutoff filter. Some older iPhones were like that and that was the original breaking story.

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IsTom 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> human eye is opaque to

Absorbing the laser isn't necessarily any good. Very hypothetically it could lead to cataracts.

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eurekin 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Sun emits much stronger IR, near-IR, UV

	▲	bregma 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Absolutely, and is a major cause of cataracts. Somewhat near 100% of people with lenses in their eyes will get cataracts eventually if they are ever exposed to unfiltered sunlight.
	▲	IsTom 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		And staring directly at the sun is not recommended.