From the cool department or from the scare-your-little-brother one: “A University of Tokyo professor claims he and his research team have developed a system that can make you ‘invisible.’ Engineering Professor Susumu Tachi is in the early stages of technology that he says will eventually enable camouflaged objects to be virtually transparent by wearing an optical device.“
Tokyo Professor Working on Invisibility
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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this is cool. i just saw it on techtv. all i could say was wow. here comes cloaking devices for us klingons.
…or Romulans.. 🙂
So what you have to wear special glasses!
They simply put a video camera behind him and a projector in front, to project onto the coat. Thats it. Watch the videa. Movie studios can already do that MUCH more effectivly.
Whats so special here?
…and for it to even work properly, they have to eliminate your depth perseption by making you look through a pin hole.
Well, on the other hand, movie studios employ better technics. One is via chemistry, but shooting a lot of radiation to your body to somehow remove all the colour from your body, you become invisible (but it only works on your body, meaning you can cover yourself with bandages..
The other technic is biological. By using a sythetic gland, it would bend light from your body, or certain parts of your body, or things and people connected to your body. Of course, some so-call Swiss mad scientist made it impossible for the US Department of Game and Fishery to clone it, while you would lapse into Quicksilver madness.
Besides, Devon, on a more serious note, this thing would be used mostly for everyday life (as the article mentioned, surgery, pilots, etc.), not for defence purposes (in Japan? haha).
The general ‘invisibility’ methods are not very impressive. So you project onto whatever you wish to appear ‘invisible’ a picture of what lies behind it? Hardly earthshaking.
More interesting to me (and more useful IMHO) was the ‘HMP-2’ HUD device that renders things invisible to the wearer, rather than the other way round.
http://www.star.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/projects/hmp/images/phantom2-c.jpg
Anyone else notice a remarkable similarity between this method and Peppers ghost from over a hundred and fifty years ago?
http://www.acmi.net.au/AIC/PEPPER_BIO.html
Pepper could do ‘invisibility’ to an audience of thousands, not just one users HUD!
the sega game Confidential Mission (light gun game) have a end boss using a massive screen/camera suit that can make him invisible Predator style.
It’s the thing that i can find the more possible to allow invisibility.
talk about the latest JAMES BOND MOVIE and i-spy
Are you the David Choi from r.g.v.a.c?
Rob
think about what happens when you miniturize it…..I think it could one day allow for invisability.
I think number one application of such a technology will be crime and warfare. What good uses could do this? Anything beside cloaking windmills and power poles?
Good idea, but not exactly a new idea. Hell, I had it years ago. I bet a million other people had it before me. I was thinking, to be more innovative, a container composed of a set of modules around the size of pinpoints (or a little bigger) that have four functions – a positioning device to pinpoint it’s location, a recording device covering perhaps a 90-120 degree radius, a screen that displays the image recorded at a reciprocal point upon a spherical screen, and a transciever that obtains and sends out visual and misc. information related to it’s position. Perhaps a large node embedded into the device that is the brains of the whole thing, recieving, processing, and distributing the appropriate information to each node with every passing moment.
Vague idea? Yeah. Farfetched? Um, yeah. One expensive project, that we really don’t have the technology to do yet? Yeah.
But my stance has always been ‘if you’re going to do something, then you might as well do it right.’ Hence, why I’m not successful – and people who do this kind of stuff are. While I’m concerned with perfection, they’re finding success coming up with simple things that just work on some vague level.
That’s life, I guess… doers and thinkers… and I’m a thinker. *shrug*.
I still think it’s corny though – but just you watch, someone will make this thing better… and then better. and it’ll just keep getting better. That’s the way things go;P
As for “Applications”. Yeah, I gotta agree with anonymous there… Personally I can’t think of much use for something like this outside the perverse, criminal, or war-related.
It’d also take some of the novelty out of magic tricks that involve disappearing/reappearing… don’tcha think?
If I’d have known OSnews was interested in this I could have posted it months ago, I’ve had 10 megs worth of videos since then.
Engage the cloaking device anyone?
Yes, it is not a new idea. A lot of people thought of it. But guess who manage to make it a reality? That Tokyo guy. So in other words, he is the inventor and innovator.
Just make sure you get out of town before the wraiths arrive.
oh well, i still think it’s quite cool. i’m thinking it would be great for cars. maybe they could make some of the interior bits (like rear quarter views) transparent, and get rid of that blind spot i have that forces me to cut off other cars.
Just to clarify, this is not an invention. This is nothing new. This is the same technology that has been in existance for a hundred years to put movies on screens. The only difference is that the are getting the video from a camera set up behind that screen, which is a guy in a poncho.
To the fellow who cannot wait till its miniaturized: so you think that if the camera on the tripod behind you and the projector on the tripod in front of you were miniature, you would have anything more usfull? I suppose you could have some sort of contraption where a large pole was attatched to your head with a projector hung on the end, several feet in front of you and a camera was strapped to your back, but you would still have to ware the poncho, and people would sure look at you funny, since they wouldn’t alll be carrying around pinholes too look through at you.
— “oh well, i still think it’s quite cool. i’m thinking it would be great for cars. maybe they could make some of the interior bits (like rear quarter views) transparent, and get rid of that blind spot i have that forces me to cut off other cars.”
Ah! Now that WOULD be a usefull aplication of this technology! Im glad SOMEONE else here actually clicked on the link and saw what this really was instead of going on about cloaking devices and such. Very good idea!
Cool, but can I wear my x-ray specs at the same time?
.. i read the “philadelphia Project ” once…..
is the retro-reflective material, this is a material that reflects light in the direction of the source (but much better than reflective paint used on the roads etc..) . Since it is directional, you need to be aligned to the projector’s beam, but need much less power to see something (since light isn’t diffused in every direction of space) so that the projection can only be seen on the auto-refective material (i.e you can’t see any trace of the projection on a ‘classical’ material, on skin etc..) . It’s like a natural blue screen but with some constraints.
The camouflage application is for fun IMO, for example you can’t see the camouflage if you’re not aligned with the projector, people passing around just saw a guy with a white jacket
, real optical camouflage is not for now!
These guys are seriously working on other applications, WHY does Yahoo shows the only one that doesn’t really work?? Making people either believe in something false or reject an interesting technique. This is disinformation IMO.
(see figure3 in http://www.star.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/projects/MEDIA/xv/vr2000.pdf )
is the retro-reflective material, this is a material that reflects light in the direction of the source (but much better than reflective paint used on the roads etc..) . Since it is directional, you need to be aligned to the projector’s beam, but need much less power to see something (since light isn’t diffused in every direction of space) so that the projection can only be seen on the auto-refective material (i.e you can’t see any trace of the projection on a ‘classical’ material, on skin etc..) .(see figure3 in http://www.star.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/projects/MEDIA/xv/vr2000.pdf )
You can use it as natural blue screen but with some constraints.
The camouflage application is for fun IMO, for example you can’t see the camouflage if you’re not aligned with the projector, people passing around just saw a guy with a white jacket
, real optical camouflage is not for now!
These guys are seriously working on other applications, WHY does Yahoo shows the only one that doesn’t really work?? Making people either believe in something false or reject an interesting technique. This is disinformation IMO.
>Cloaking device
Perhaps in distant future, spacecraft can use a very strong gravity / magnet to bend lightwave around the spacecraft (according to Einstein).
For biology cloaking, perhaps certain species of Octopus / Jellyfish / Chameleons can change their color / become partially transparent by re-arranging the pigments on their body.
Perhaps similar thing can be done to genetically modified animals in the future, but this only reveal blood vessel, hair, internal organs etc.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/octopus/chameleons.html
All he is is some stupid guy, who has turned himself into a projection screen (“Look at me, mommy… let’s play our home movies and slides on ME instead of that boring white pull-down screen.”)! It doesn’t look even HALF believable as to what true invisibility is believed to represent.
The animals and insects still got us beat… EASILY!
What the wearer needs to wear is mirror material (100% reflective) that not only cancels out the appearance of warping (as any movement by the wearer would cause), but also project a full rear scene onto him. But I don’t see how you’d be able to project anything onto it.
A full “LCD jacket” would be more likely. You simply play the image, via a panoramic camera and it’s displayed across the full span of the jacket (360 degrees). But a “wearable screen” of that design and size would easily cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions… maybe even billions.
Of course, the camera would also have to negate your movements in it’s display of what it’s seeing to make the effect really take.
Eh… whatever… we’re still a few (read: MANY) years away from “true invisibility”.
So I guess I’m not the only person who liked the Invisible Man TV series. Too bad the “What’s Sci-Fi? Channel” killed the show.
Invisibility? Nonsense. This system isn’t invisibility; it’s just projection. But it is darn cool anyway.
“I want my molecules back!!” – Memoirs of an Invisible Man
Sadly I can’t think of a good one-liner from the Invisible Man TV show at the moment… I’m sure there are a ton…
And all of this would be blown away by the heat signature of the wearer/engine whatever.
M
I think everyone just clicked on the link, looked at the AP Photo of the green poncho, and made their judgement based on that one photo.
Go here to watch the news video based on the AP story:
http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/apvid/stream/gallery/av_ts_ap2/*http:… – AP – Japanese Researcher Claims Invisible Technology &bw=http%253A%252F%252Fstory.news.yahoo.com%252Fnews~* ~@~253Ftmpl%253Dindex2%2526cid%253D979&dw=http%3A% 2F%2Fstory.news.yahoo.com%2Fnews%3Ftmpl%3Dstory2%2 6u%3D%2F030207%2F163%2F37uvq.html
The first few minutes of the video will show you that 1) a guy has some kind of special sheet that allows you to see his skeleton, 2) he is MOVING the sheet around, and 3) he moves his hand IN FRONT of the sheet.
I can see how the green poncho thing can be based on camera tricks, but how are camera tricks done to show someone’s skeleton??
Or try this here.
http://www.star.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/projects/MEDIA/xv/images/bone2.mpg
It is a projection, nothing more.