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This might not be unique to presidential speeches, but it’s where I’ve seen these things.
They're teleprompters.
this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026
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It's like planes & cars with HUDs on transparent windshields (only the driver can really see it):
I'm not sure why more cars don't do this, it seems almost all upsides.
Exactly.
This is tech from the 50s (and you can find concept pics of it used in cars), it's simple, cheap, and improves road safety a lot. I struggle when I have to drive a car without hud (I've first seen it irl around I guess 2005, yet not much changed till today, you still either have to pay extra or buy one of the top specs). Govs should just mandate it as a standard.
Even weirder, when talking to ppl irl they mostly just say "oh that's stupid" or "I don't need that" (my father used to be one of those ppl too, and when he recently took his car to the shop & they gave him a temporary car without hud he bitched about it all the time how he doesn't know how fast he is going (without looking away from the street)).
(There is loads of such tech that work as good as 20 or 30 years ago, are generally cheap in terms of production costs, yet they remain a rarity - adaptive/radar cruise control, adaptive high mean beams, self-levelling low beams, cornering lights, IR cameras spotting & beaming nearby pedestrians and animals, etc. At least EU mandated assisted emergency braking so that the crashes occur at lower speeds or not at all. Megacorps just have to much influence/power/profits.)
Nissan Silvia & 240 used this basic hud in 1988:
Oldsmobile, also 1988:
My father had a car with that when I was a kid and I still remember how much he loved it.
As someone who's never had it it's always seemed like a nice to have and like it's silly it's not standard. Though it does look like you can get aftermarket ones at a reasonable price and that is tempting
On my first car I used my phone for that (some Symbian Nokia maybe?), but only a few times.
It didn't have the battery for it really, and a bit of lag on them old GPS dedicated chips (it fit the dashboard nicely tho), but it proved the concept beautifully.
Because Elon wants to kill you.
Yes. They project the text from an angle so it reflects towards the speaker. Just like windows are transparent but can still reflect images in the right lighting.
They’re teleprompters crossed with Pepper’s ghost.
Are you telling me these teleprompters are haunted
Any reasonable person would know they are haunted.
And seasoned
Nothing beats el fantasma teleprónter caliente!
Yeah, they're still reflective enough to mirror the text when viewed from the right angle.
Here's an example from YouTube so you can see what it looks like from the perspective of the one speaking:
What a shit demonstration. 1 second in the middle shows how it works, the rest is some guy talking.
So....like every youtube video.
Every demo or build video should start with the money shot, then go back to step 1.
Try this one, this guy is great about getting into the nitty gritty. https://youtu.be/YeRu4xYH_W0
From the teeny thumbnail, I can tell that's Technology Connections, and Alex is great for deep dives into random bits of tech.
Anyone interested in pinball machines can find a 3 part series on them, and its sooooo much fun to watch
Yeah I didn't look that hard, was the first video I found that was sub 3 minutes. They're all just marketing reels, no one else seems inclined to just upload a quick video on how teleprompters work.
Are they actually teleprompters, or are those mirrors that reflect the teleprompter screen below it?
I've always wondered.
They reflect the screen below it, so that the audience can see the speaker even if the prompter is in the way; they are part of the teleprompter.
The screen shows all the text backwards since it’ll be reversed in the mirrored image, so you need both for it to work.
One and the same.
Dude has teleprompters and still sounds like a complete moron. Sad. Everybody is saying it.
Everybody knows! Ask anyone!
Seth Meyers making fun of him from transitioning from one teleprompter to the next is one of the funnier things I've seen online lately.
After the 10 min mark for the teleprompter switch, for anyone who can't spare 15 mins in their hour of scrolling
Thanks for the laughs, kind stranger
The teleprompters are just for show so that it looks like he can read
Cant get real and go off-script if there's no script to go off of.
Teleprompter. They're mirrored on one side and reflect a screen with a script scrolling below them.
It's the secret portal that lets the aliens control the heads of state.
Hologram projectors. Only true way to protect the president is to hide him
Ok honestly though, if i were the president I would troll the country by appearing as pepper's ghost at some point…
They project a visual effect on it that makes it look vaguely humanoid
It’s bulletproof glass for the two small blind spots the Secret Service can’t cover. They tried different agent setups to cover all sides first, but eventually figured „ah, fuck it, let’s just put some bullet proof glass on these two angles and we’re fine.“ Also, they have a secondary use to project text for the president to read. But that only came up after Obama came up with idea. „Hey guys, why don’t you project the text I need to read somewhere in the wall, so I don’t have to use a stack of papers?“ - „but isn’t that too far away to read?“ - „ oh, yeah… hey, how about we use that bullet proof glass thingy and project it on there?“ - „seriously? Projecting onto glass? What did they put in your cereal this morning, sir?“
Maybe this invention saved Trump, that's what makes it an evil invention
Poor aim is guilty of saving Dump.
Why does Trump need a teleprompter? You mean the battery boat shark speech was from a Harvard English grad?