Slashdot Mirror
Invisible Cloaks, Translucent Walls
jd writes "The University of Tokyo has developed the illusion of invisibility, under the name of 'Optical Camouflage.' The system is remarkably simple - you have a mix of light-sensitive and light-emitting devices attached to an adapted reflective surface. The devices are hooked to a computer, which simply projects on each side whatever is on the opposite side. The result is more of a translucent look, than real invisibility, but the potential is there. The inventer's next objective is to make walls that are invisible, using the same technology. Project a real outside image onto an interior wall without windows. This almost sounds more frightening than the cloak, since there's no reason why the sensors would have to be placed outside. Imagine a world where PHBs can turn their office wall into a window onto any cube. Zero privacy. The technology is great, but the potential for abuse is definitely there." Update: 06/15 00:20 GMT by T : You may remember we mentioned this project when it was cloak-only.
This sounds like it's the future of what our soldiers will be wearing. This combined with the movement enhancement devices could create soldiers who could run as fast as animals and be effectively invisible. No longer is this technology limited to sci-fi movies like "Preditor".
Now if only there was a way to get around the infrared as well.
Very cool story. Be even cooler if I hadn't seen it before. Right here. And it's a 'merican whose applied for the patent.
The idea of an "invisibility cloak" has made the leap from science fiction books to an international patent application. Ray Alden of North Carolina is attempting to patent a "three dimensional cloaking process and apparatus" for concealing objects and people (WO 02/067196).
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
...i can see right thru their work,,,
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
While the potential for having windows viewing into cubes is there, it seems like security cameras already do this.
No, I think the positives for this could far outway the negatives. Just think about how great it would be to have a window view of the outside world, even though you're in the middle of the building... sure, it's something that could be done with a monitor, but this sounds like it would give it a more real effect...
... cost however would probably keep this from changing anything.
WANNAWIKI Wannawiki WannaWiki WANNAWIKI!
Almost as good as glass walls for watching birds fly into it!
the story of the emperor's new clothes is not going to make any sense at all to our children.
Cthulu saves... in case he gets hungry later.
::helping geeks get laid since 1983::
do we get the Infinite Ammo Bandana and
Soliton Radar System to go with it?
anata sekai o kakumei surush ga nai deshou? Anata no susumu michi wa yoi shite arimasu.
Imagine a world where PHBs can turn their office wall into a window onto any cube. Zero privacy. The technology is great, but the potential for abuse is definitely there."
This technology opens us up to all sorts of new privacy abuses--oh, wait, no it doesn't. We've had cameras for years. It's the display that's new.
Wow, my last two posts have been bitter. I suppose Slashdot has finally rubbed off on me.
Finally I'll be able to get into the women's locker room undetected!
An activity for two people called sex has been demonstrated by researchers from the University of Phoenix; almost immediately, the ACLU denounced the practice as invasive to privacy. "Somebody can just carry off your DNA, which contains everything about you, and do who knows what with it," stated an unidentified ACLU spokesman. Meanwhile, dork website Slashdot recommended using a version of sex modified for one person.
This works great until you get into three dimensions at which point it all goes sour.
Because light's reflecting off of the coat itself. Plus, the shape of the cloak is not symetrical. I just don't see how it even works. Sure, I could imagine something like a sheet of paper partially working.
As for see-thru wall, it's probably a lot easier then this guy wants it to be...
Just make the wall itself clear. Then use an lcd-like mechanism to act as a 'shutter', allowing the outside light in. Note that each 'pixel' could be quite large (several inches).
In other words, when the wall's off, it's opaque. When current's applied to a section, the liquid inside the wall becomes clear and the wall is see-through. Not sure if the technology's there yet, though....
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
quickly discarded it because it would fail as soon as the observer moved or looked at it from a slight angle - the problem being of course the system has no way of knowing where a viewer might be to correctly map the 'camera' to the right 'display cell'.
[)amien
Interesting, this stuff belongs in the internal areas of cars in the so-called blind spots. Probably needs to improve upon the resolution a bit though. Kind of like wearing a digital CCD/CMOS.
Bah...
Link 1
Link 2
She loves me: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0 She loves me not: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688BF
The key development of the cloak, however, was the development of a new material called retro-reflectum.
Anyone else think "retro-reflectum" sounds like some harry potter spell?
First, what you speak of already exists. They are called either automatic or active windows. However they wouldn't work to well for walls because LCD exists in two states. Black and transparent. I don't know about you, but I don't like the idea of a black wall. A heavily shaded window is okay, but a black wall is horrid!
In other words, when the wall's off, it's opaque. When current's applied to a section, the liquid inside the wall becomes clear and the wall is see-through. Not sure if the technology's there yet, though....
Yeah, it has been around for quite some time, here is just one of many articles on it: Smart Glass
One of my client's has their entire NOC done up with this kind of glass. Just one of the excesses of the dot-com era.
This stuff ain't cheap, but there is even more expensive versions that go black instead of translucent white (and default to clear when there is no current). I desperately want some of that for my car's windows. Alas it is so expensive that the people selling it don't even talk to small fry like I.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
As for see-thru wall, it's probably a lot easier then this guy wants it to be...
:)
I've got one... it's called a *window*
In other words, when the wall's off, it's opaque
Yup, got one of those too... it's called a *window blind*.
Not sure if the technology's there yet, though....
There is one obvious problem with the "invisibility cloak" that nobody has mentioned. In fact, the demonstrations of the device take advantage of the flaw and use it to make the device look like it will work.
The problem is, this device will make you "invisible" only to ONE PERSON. Or more correctly, the image projected on the cloak will only work for one point of view. So when the device is demoed to a camera, the camera is placed at the spot where the illusion works. If you place another camera 10 feet to the left, it would show that the image doesn't match the background, so the illusion of "invisibility" doesn't work. It's a parallax thing.
So everyone just knock of the stupid theorizing about how this is going to be battlefield camoflauge, it just isn't going to happen. It might be useful for limited circumstances, for a single viewer, for example, a surgeon might be able to see a computer-graphic overlay of the surgical operating field right through his hands. But it's not going to be a magic invisibility cloak.
And for large LCD's you can control the opacity by trottling the current.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
At the San Francisco Wired Tech fest, the coat was demoed and to be honest, it didn't appear (to me) to work very well.
I'm sure it is in its infancy but you've got to be looking at the subject DEAD ON and with perfect lighting.
This is one technology that looks much better in photos than it does in real life.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Oh, to be able to get women's clothes to become invisible at will!...
The article mentions Shirow under the references section! Wow. Using whats in GitS as a base, how long till it becomes thermoptic-camo, masking the ir and thermal signtaure as well?
Yay me!
...we had mirror glass.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
At least for real 'invisibility'. I saw it in person at NextFest in San Francisco. It's a neat gimmick, but you're only *invisible* if your enemy is carrying a video projector and a video camera and projecting camouflage onto you. On the other hand you could watch TV on J.Lo's butt. Now that's useful.
Imagine a world where PHBs can turn their office wall into a window onto any cube. Zero privacy.
I cannot believe that's your biggest worry.
Dude, if you're spending so much time on Slashdot that your PHB has to put a half a billion dollars worth of tech in your cube just to get an honest day's work outta you, then you have some serious issues.
Just do your job, man. And then your PHB won't have to have an entire Romulan Warbird keep a friggin eye on you.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
This almost sounds more frightening than the cloak, since there's no reason why the sensors would have to be placed outside. Imagine a world where PHBs can turn their office wall into a window onto any cube. Zero privacy.
How would this be any different than using video cameras, privacy wise? and we've had those for years.
This sounds like it's the future of what our soldiers will be wearing.
No, it sounds like what future peeping toms will be wearing.
The problem with the above plan is that you're limited to clear materials when you're building the wall. The translucent wall tech described in the article could be applied to a wall of any thickness and made of any material- even a load-bearing brick or concrete wall.
Of course, you caould always just use Tansparent concrete, but that's still a ways off.
I've used welding helmets very much like you describe. They're triggered by very bright light to become extremely (you can only see the arc) dark. As soon as you turn the welder off, the helmet goes clear (well, actually, green). My impression is that this isn't too novel.
By my take on the diagram of how it works, the system requires itself to have a static copy of the background to be mimmiced. In all the demos, you never see the camera move, because that would change the background that is being mimmiced, and would probably give the hardware an aneurism trying to keep up with the updates. They most likely had to take a shot of the background before the demonstrator and his "stealth object" came into view, to use for the projection part of the process. That, and they're probably using a visual comparison system to determine how to mask off the projector so it doesn't project light of any sort anywhere except where the cloaked item is.
This means it's not really possible to cloak something that's in front of a changing backdrop, at least not with this implementation of the technology.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
almost sounds more frightening than the cloak, since there's no reason why the sensors would have to be placed outside.
Everyone is talking like he's got some brand new technology here or something.
It's just a camera and a video projector. With a cloak or wall made out of some highly reflective material. That's it. You have to setup the camera ahead of time, and setup the video projector ahead of time. You have to have power to run it all. You have to stand in exactly the right spot, and it only works as an invisibility cloak if the other guy is standing near line of sight with the projector. Which is itself obviously pretty visible.
Before this guy put all this stuff together, bosses were putting cameras in the workplace. This "innovation" (and believe me I use the term loosely) doesn't really add anything to that equation.
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
The photo shows a guy standing in front of a truck, and the logo on the truck continues through the back of the person wearing the cloak.
This image is going to remain the same size on the back of the cloak wearer. If the observer walks away from the cloak wearer, the truck image will look smaller, while the image on the cloak wearer stays the same size. No good.
Unless the image on the cloak is different to whoever is viewing it, at whatever distance they are at, then this technology is inherently flawed.
Next.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The story is a dupe, the topic is boring, the facts weren't checked. WE GET IT!!
Video cameras - fucking video cameras we've had for decades - have the same "potential for abuse," the same ability to usher in a new zero-privacy, post-apocalyptic distopian future.
Every new technology of any substance whatsoever has the "potential" for some kind of abuse, guess we'll have to live in fear for the rest of our lives.
sic transit gloria mundi
Holy Schitt, you might be right... I heard of this evil technology that's available right now, as we speak, to PHBs, the CIA, and other evil entities. It permits them to see things located in another place, live, or they can store the collected images as a motion picture of sorts and refer back to it later. This evil invention is called the video camera, and I have a feeling that these things will soon pop up all over the place. Zero privacy. Oh well.
sorry... but slashdot has had stories on this about 40 times now
It's getting absolutely ridiculous. NOTHING NEW HAS COME OUT! JUST SOME STUPID FUCKING MOCKUPS!
give me a break
Casual Games/Downloads
Actually, they are already working on this in a way with planes. In order to prevent visual detection, the bottom of of the plane radiates light, so as to replace the light that it would normally block from the sky. (the tops of the planes are painted to resemble the ground). The same could be true of a soldier wearing this material... No matter what color you're wearing, in the desert during the day you pretty much block out the light. Add some additional luminescence of the proper color and viola! Slightly less visible.
The ______ Agenda
(President Scroob is having a pee when the wall in front of him becomes a video screen)
Officer: "President Scroob"
President Scroob: "Aargh. I told you never to call me on this wall."
(He gets his pecker caught in his zip)
Listen to it!
Other Spaceballs quotes
The Awful Truth
If it's not 3D, and does not shift the view with the movements of the viewer, it doesn't work.
-----
Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.
First, it uses by projecting light onto something. So it doesn't work at night. Second, looking at the cloak, there's still shadows and all. And now they want to apply the same technology to make invisible walls? They'll have a tough job beating the ancient technology called 'glass'.
Reminds me of the old joke:
Q: What do you call a device to listen to the heart?
A: A stethoscope.
Q: What do you call a device to see far?
A: A telescope.
Q: What do you call a device to see very small things?
A: A microscope.
Q: What do you call a device that allows you to see through walls?
A: A window.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
One possible flaw:
Whenever the molecule is hit by a neutrino, it performs the reverse.
We're using neutrinos! They go through EVERYTHING!
but that's a really good idea... i had never thought of that.
The first is, obviously, the fact there are no 'types' of neutrinos. You can't have colors. Not to mention that light doesn't really work that way...you'd need to convert from the full spectrum to RGB, which means you'd need two or even three neutrinos for each photon.
However, we can pretend neutrinos have undiscovered 'frequencies' and ignore all that.
You also have the issue that you need to remove all neutrinos that already are passing though someone so the other side doesn't show random static. That's doable if you're managed to get this far handing neutrinos, but this leads to the large disadvantage that any idiot could see you with neutrino glasses, because you'd be blocking them out.
However, all this is moot because is the insurmountable physic problem that neutrinos are fermions (basically, they're electrons without a charge) and photons are bosons, and there's no way to for them to turn into each other.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Although note that while we have these magical neutrino detectors, that still doesn't mean they're going to be casting a shadow on the ground, because neutrinos don't bounch off anything, and hence it would be hard to see someone is blocking neutrinos unless they're directly in the way.
But I'm fairly certain they're common enough, (Pretending, of course, we had a way of detecting them, which is required for this to work.), for someone to notice that they are missing from a certain point. And it's even worse than wearing glasses...unlike infrared or motion detectors, if there are neutrinos missing it pretty much is required to be a human doing it. Just hook up autotargeted guns to the sensors and blow them away.
Of course, the gag here is that our neutrino detectors would also be blocking neutrinos...
However, this idea works perfectly if you ditch the neurinos and use, say, UHF. Just shift the wavelengths of light up, and back down. Sure, we don't have any known way of doing that right now perfectly, but it's more plausible than inventing a neutrino converter. And it seems, at least to me, at least slightly more plausible than bending light around something. And you can fix the 'blind spot' problem by just broadcasting static from random points and building waveform guides on equipment to delibrately screw with tracking that specific radio frequencies.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?