Wheel Of Fortune has been on the air for nearly 50 years, and in that time, not too much about the show has changed - it's still very similar to when it started where a contestant spins the big wheel and the letters are shown on a large board. Well for its latest season, that board is going to look very different. In fact, it will be so technologically advanced that it will make the show seem futuristic, and that's because the most recent board, made up of monitors, will be replaced with one covered by lasers.
Wheel's head of electronics, Bill Monk, hinted at the change in an interview last year, revealing that the new puzzle board will "be a beam of light," adding that Vanna White can interact with it because "where [she puts her] finger through, we'll know where the XY coordinates [are], so we'll know to trigger that box."
It's all thanks to the Lidar technology that is running the new board. Lidar, which stands for light detection and ranging, is similar to sonar and radar and is what the iPhone uses to scan a 3D object. According to BuzzerBlog, which saw the new board on a Sony Pictures Studios tour and posted photos of it, it resembles "one massive LED display." Essentially, the new board will be that one massive LED display with a grid of invisible lasers in front of it.
You can see it in action when the 40th season of Wheel of Fortune premieres on September 12.