[coder1001]

The number of simple, yet very cool ideas on HN just baffles me, no wonder HN is an addiction!

Selling an add-on/accessory that clips onto any macbook or even any laptop with similar screen properties as the macbook pro used will be a nice little business!

[illustrioussuit]

It seems it already exists!

https://www.brightfingers.com/mirrormethis

> MirrorMeThis is a specially-designed laptop mirror. Instead of your students seeing your face, they see the keyboard area where you can place anything you want to share and talk about.

So it's designed for the classroom, but I don't see why it couldn't work here.

[jcun4128]

That's neat... you could scan things with this. But I realize now your phone can do it too.

[sjs7007]

Wow, this is pretty cool, thanks for sharing!

[_Microft]

Since it is this time of the year again, here is an idea: try bouncing the view of the screen off of a metallized glass Christmas bauble for a makeshift curved mirror.

Edit: an iPhone fails to focus on the reflections in a Christmas bauble, maybe the warped reflection throws something off in the auto-focus method.

Edit 2: it works with a larger bauble, supposedly because the view is not as warped as in a small one that has a smaller radius of curvature.

[the_arun]

I remember 2008 Prius had mirror to reflect Speedometer. Basically Speedometer is on the floor of the dashboard and a vertical mirror reflects the numbers. I assumed they made it this way to save space.

[jcrawfordor]

This technique is often used to reduce eyestrain and refocusing by extending the optical distance to the display, making it.more similar in terms of vergence angle and focus distance to the view outside. I'm not sure if this was the motivation in the Prius but given the fairly advanced state of VFD displays at the time I'd guess so, there would have been options to avoid the complexity. It's further curious that the Prius used to use half mirrors to combine multiple display units for that dashboard, I'm less sure of the reason for that other than that perhaps the assembly was expensive and they saved money by doing it only for critical instruments like the speedometer.

[bluedino]

Some GM cars had this back in the 80's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzVV8UUIu48