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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.
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.
I don't think soldiers will be wearing this technology any time soon. It requires an image to be project on the material. Doesn't seem practicle for a soldier running throught the forest. Now if you wanted to hide a stationary vehicle or plane this could be the ticket.
Remember... ZG9uJ3QgZm9yZ2V0IHRvIGRyaW5rIHlvdXIgb3ZhbHRpbmU=
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.
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?
... unless you looked at it from different angle.
This must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
I should have read closer... that's not really cool at all. I can't sneak into the women's locker room with that thing.
The IR thing is more of a problem. Heck, we already have an excellent visible light stealth system. It's called DARK. All night vision systems track IR since it's generally around in abundence at night.
You are also still a target on Radar, and probably Lidar as the system still reflects or absorbs high amplitude pulses of light differently that the background.
You also run into interesting problems with lighting. If someone shines a spotlight on you, your shadow would still be dark, so you would stand out as a dark spot.
There are undoubtedly computational ways around all that, but after a while your number cruncher is going to be more of an emmission signature than whatever you are hiding.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
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.
So what you're saying is that there is no use mucking about with all these reflectors, LEDs and computers. Just paint the guy pink and turn on a cheap and simple Somebody Else's Problem Field.
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...
I don't think soldiers will be wearing this technology any time soon.
Especially since the army has already invested in their first uniform redesign in 23 years as announced today, and it should take 3 years for a transition. So if they go at the same rate, expect something like this in 25 years or so.
It requires an image to be project on the material.
Actually it's worse than that. It requires the image be projected from the onlooker's point of view. That's what they mean by HMP (==head-mounted projector) So for army dudes to use this, they'd have to actually run up to the enemy, and surreptitiously slap a projector on the head of each bad guy they wanted to hide from, then run back and go about their business of avoiding detection. There's probably a greater liklihood of success basing your military tactics on lethally funny jokes.
The point of camouflage isn't to make someone (or something) invisible. Its there to break the outline of the object so its difficult to tell what the object is, how far away, which direction they're going.
This might not work at night against an army equipped with IR sensors, but in the daylight, on a hill, in a jungle or anywhere else you dont want your outline visible this will be effective.
If it can be used to cloak ships, aircraft, etc. it will be a boon. Sure you can still be detected, but the element of suprise is what counts. A few extra seconds is all that counts. Someone not believing what their sensors are telling them beacuse they can't see whats coming at them.
Also, in aricraft if you can hide the cockpit your pilots will have a huge advantage over adversaries. In fighter combat, the whole point is to keep your lift vector on your oponent. If he does something unpredicatble and goes beneath your aircraft your dead. If you can't see your oponent your dead. If you can see him no matter where he his in a 360 sphere you've just won.
Its not totally comparable, but try flying IL2 (or any other air combat sim) with cockpits on vs someone that has them turned off. Its a totally different experience.
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.
In Susumu Tachi's cloaking system, a camera behind the wearer feeds background images through a computer to a projector, which paints them on a jacket as though it were a movie screen. The wearer appears mysteriously translucent - as long as observers are facing the projection head-on and the background isn't too bright.
To Achieve true invisibility, optical camouflage must capture the background from all angles and display it from all perspectives simultaneously. This requires a minimum of six stereoscopic camera pairs, allowing the computer to model the surroundings and synthesize the scene from every point of view. To display this imagery, the fabric is covered with hyperpixels, each consisting of a 180 x 180 LED array behind a hemispherical lens. This is fantastic, although I'd rather drink a potion.
http://www.kevinrewatts.com/filter/archives/2003_0 7.html
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
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.
Now if only the romulans would let starfleet have the technology...
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.
Hmmm... Velcro. Stealthy....
The Philosophy of Liberty | lewrockwell.com
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.
True, in it's current form it's merely a cool demo. But I imagine one could design an LCD that projected a different image depending on the angle you viewed it from. Kind of like those ribbed plastics (can it, beavis) that show different parts of the image depending on the angle... and thus alow simple animation and 3-d looking objects through small movements.
Of course, the image would also have to be grabbed from different angles... so we're talking a load of optics and processing and projecting. But I imagine it could be done in the next 25 years if someone wanted it badly enough.
Cheers.
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?!
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.
they are called lenticular devices or often "winkie" - see http://www.didik.com/3d_hist.htm
The light at the end of the tunnel is a train.
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
If a soldier wants to blend into Los Angeles, all he needs to do is wear-- nah, it's too easy...
"The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the pieces." --Aldo Leopold (Paraphrased)
Once again Mil Procurement fucks it up. Just read the cnn article. VELCRO fucking pockets!! I'm ex military (australia) and the last thing you want or need is velcro on your uniform. Waiting quietly in an ambush, just need to carefully and slowly remove a pen from my pocket RRRRIIIIPPPPPPPPP - you're dead... Perhaps its not such a problem for US forces, with all that technology maybe there's no need for Fieldcraft anymore - but I doubt it...
Who's with me?! I SAID... WHO'S WITH ME!!??
I'm ex military (australia) and the last thing you want or need is velcro on your uniform. Waiting quietly in an ambush, just need to carefully and slowly remove a pen from my pocket RRRRIIIIPPPPPPPPP
:-)
You ambush the enemy with just a pen?
You guys must be REALLY tough...
Information wants to be beer.
You ambush the enemy with just a pen?
The pen is mightier than the SAW!
Thank you, I'm here all week.
I say we take-off and slashdot the site from orbit... it's the only way to be sure
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