Japanese Professor Working On Invisibility
from the cool,-but-not-as-cool-as-you-might-think dept
This AP story is popping up everywhere, but it took some searching to find a version that included a picture. Apparently a Japanese professor is working on a system to make people "invisible", and there's a picture of a student where a coat which you can see through, so the people walking behind him are visible through his body. The article is a little lacking in details, but it sounds like the effect is created by projecting the view of another camera onto the "invisible" surface and lining them up so they seem transparent - which isn't quite so revolutionary as any "invisible cloak" claims might sound. However, there are potential commercial uses, such as letting surgeons see through their hands, or letting pilots see through the cockpit floor.
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Criminal Heaven
- Las Vegas card counters, move aside!
- Thugs can hide in alleys and jump out at exactly the right moment.
- How about if registered sex offenders are required to wear invisibility goggles when going out? Then they see members of the opposite sex (if they're hetero) only as vague blobs.
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Lifestyle Filter
You can use such goggles to make invisible anyone you don't like.
- If you're gay, make all women invisible
- If you're a racist, make all nonwhites invisible
- If you're deaf, make all hearing people invisible
etc.
It would be like walkmans or sunglasses taken to a new level.
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Invisibility Down
The point-of-view problem is insuperable, no free-standing item can be "invisible" from every direction to all observers.
BUT certainly if the observers are all looking downward, it is easier to blend into the terrain. Take the chameleon. Please.
Maybe this technique is already being used by ground-hugging robots in (for example) Afghanistan. I read that they're using sensors disguised as rocks. So why not the Amazing Visibility-Dehanced Dirt-Bot (TM), which blends into any ground decor, and when there's no infrared sources (read: people) close by, motors close to enemy encampments for live low-power TV transmissions?
The next generation will have facial recognition, especially tuned for OBL. And poison darts. Or .22 ammo. Or laser beams. Or something like that. Watch out, bad guys!
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Re: Lifestyle Filter
Uh, wtf is that suppose to mean? If your hetero and male would you make all other males invisible?
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Re: Lifestyle Filter
hey NOB, read the article before you comment - if you did have such goggles they would serve to make your eyes seem invisible to people looking at you, assuming you were hooked up to a camera system on the back of your head.
poor you - seems you enjoy hearing about new technology but don't have the intelligence to comprehend it!
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Re: Lifestyle Filter
Ok if you are racist, make all nonwhites invisible? What if you're nonwhite? Why didn't you say make white people invisible huh? ugh nonsense
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Re: Lifestyle Filter
but how would the glasses distinguish, like say, the deaf people from the fully capable people?? and how could it see the difference between men and women.... yes i agree that in some cases that it might be useful but it would be hard to manufacture unless people wore some kind of sign that would register in the glasses and make them block out that area.... but also another problem would be how could they block the picture out? it would require to much power for, say like a 9 volt battery
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