There are two fact there, neither of which needs further checking. One is that the current glasses don't block OLED screens. The other is that the company owners hope to find a way to block more screens.
I agree that there's reason to think that hope is unlikely to be fulfilled. Talking to someone on staff won't help, though. What you want is for the reporter to interview a few different actual experts on display technologies and optical filtering and have at least one of them say something that dismisses the hope.
From the writer's perspective, I'm not sure what that would add to the article. Wired's whole shtick has been excitement about the possibilities of technology, often at a level that borders on technoutopianism. And smart experts rarely make sweeping statements about what's totally impossible; they're much more likely to say that it can't be done with this technology or that they think it will be a hard problem to solve. So it's not going to be a compelling quote, and it'll be a fair bit of work to get.
There is a clear difference between wishing for the impossible, and having plans for the future.
> actual experts
To explain how polarized light works? No, I absolutely do not want quotes. I want statements of basic fact.
> they're much more likely to say that it can't be done with this technology
How about this: Any technology for blocking OLED would be a completely different thing from what they used to make these glasses. It's not an improvement, it's a replacement. It's misleading to use terms like "right now" to talk about such a situation.
Journalists inserting their own non-expert views in articles doesn't generally sound like a great idea to me. And it's something they're trained to not do.
> Any technology for blocking OLED would be a completely different thing from what they used to make these glasses.
Yes, that's the kind of statement that they could get from an expert. But it's not clear to me that it improves the article more than marginally, not to a level that justifies the work time and publishing delay needed to get the statement.
Does it help the person who might buy these glasses? Will it be exciting to the kind of person who reads gee-whiz articles about tech? Does it enhance the enjoyment of the reader who likes the cultural and artistic aspects? No, no, and no. It also doesn't help people who already understand polarized light; to them it is, as you say, a basic fact.
That kind of thing might be appropriate if this were an article about somebody trying to build a serious business whose long-term survival depended on them blocking all screens. And if this were some place like the WSJ, that was actually trying to do serious business reporting. But since this is a 700-word light piece on a cute novelty, an object meant to provoke discussion, I'm not seeing the point.
I agree that there's reason to think that hope is unlikely to be fulfilled. Talking to someone on staff won't help, though. What you want is for the reporter to interview a few different actual experts on display technologies and optical filtering and have at least one of them say something that dismisses the hope.
From the writer's perspective, I'm not sure what that would add to the article. Wired's whole shtick has been excitement about the possibilities of technology, often at a level that borders on technoutopianism. And smart experts rarely make sweeping statements about what's totally impossible; they're much more likely to say that it can't be done with this technology or that they think it will be a hard problem to solve. So it's not going to be a compelling quote, and it'll be a fair bit of work to get.