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Cloak of Invisibility Coming Soon?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the still-no-belt-of-hill-giant-strength-tho dept.

Chris writes "The idea of an "invisibility cloak" has made the leap from science fiction books to an international patent application. The "three dimensional cloaking process and apparatus" for concealing objects and people (WO 02/067196) employs photodetectors on the rear surface which are used to record the intensity and color of a source of illumination behind the object. Light emitters on the front surface then generate light beams that exactly mimic the same measured intensity, color and trajectory. The result is that an observer looking at the front of the object appears to see straight through it."

7 of 432 comments (clear)

  1. Uhmm, YIKES! by athlon02 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    From that site mentioned in the article...

    "The technique may be useful for wiping confidential or sensitive data from a disk."

    The whole reason I use CD-Rs over CD-RWs is so that my data can *NOT* be erased... I've backed up family/friends photos, my CD collection, freeware apps, FreeBSD ISOs, etc, etc. on various CD-Rs and now someone has the potential for wiping that out if they ever got a hold of my CD-Rs? Maybe I should start looking around for how to get a hold of a full blown CD making machine, since last time I checked you can erase physical pitts on a CD.

    1. Re:Uhmm, YIKES! by david+duncan+scott · · Score: 1, Offtopic
      now someone has the potential for wiping that out if they ever got a hold of my CD-Rs?

      They've had that all along. A hammer would do a pretty good job, sandpaper's effective, microwave ovens are a colorful approach, blowtorches work, trash compactors would do it, they could take them out to sea and drop them in the Marians Trench...nobody ever said CD's were indestructible.
      --

      This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander

  2. Re:Practicality? by _Swank · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    stop reading the wheel of time. there are no warders. you cannot channel -- and niether can anyone else. the dark one and the creator are not at war (ok, they might be). there is no dragon reborn.

  3. Terrorists already have them by Pedrito · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    According to this Slashdot article the terrorist networks are already "cloaked".

    Man, these stories are only two apart and nobody has connected the dots yet? Obviously these guys are working for the other side and need to be dealt with appropriately.

  4. Topic should be different by calmdude · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    It should have been the einstein head instead of the motherboard.

  5. Re:Huh? by wildekat · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    what's the point, you can't see anything on them anyway ;)

    (ok, troll.. but i just had to :))

  6. Parallax? by dunedan · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    see subject