Invisibility cloak on the horizon, scientists say

Scientists say they are a step closer to developing materials that will render people and other objects invisible.

Researchers say they can redirect light around 3D objects using metamaterials--artificially engineered structures created at a nano scale that contain optical properties not found in nature, according to an Associated Press report.

People see objects as a result of the light reflecting or scattering off them. This new mixture of materials has "negative refractive" properties that keep light from being absorbed or reflected by the object, allowing only the light from behind the object to be seen. Essentially, the material bends visible light in a way that eliminates the creation of reflections or shadows in much the way water flows around a stone.

The findings, to be released later this week in Nature and Science, were made by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, led by Xiang Zhang. The research, which was funded in part by the U.S. Army Research Office and the National Science Foundation's Nano-Scale Science and Engineering Center, could have broad applications, including for the military.

But the materials work in limited wavelengths, so they won't be used to hide buildings from satellites, said Jason Valentine, who is a co-author of one of the papers.

"We are not actually cloaking anything," Valentine told Reuters. While the Harry Potter series of books and films has made the idea of a personal "invisibility cloak" popular, he says, "I don't think we have to worry about invisible people walking around any time soon. To be honest, we are just at the beginning of doing anything like that."

[jef5623]

A good beginning always makes a good ending and this new advancement must be explored to its core in order to understand its feasibility, There is still a long time left to yet spectaculate as to how far will technology here go but if the researchers were to use the tools from the 7th age of computing, I am sure that this technology can be very well simplified.

[Art Dir]

At first I thought it sounded very cool. Then a thought occurred to me.

Invisible police?

Given the slippery slope of our ever diminishing, post 9/11, give up our freedom to protect our freedom creep towards zero protection from encroachment on our personal lives?no thanks.

[Lerianis]

Is anyone else scared about the 'wrong people' getting ahold of this technology, making a skintight suit out of it and going on a rape/murder rampage?
I know I am probably being a little..... over-cautious here, but II have to foresee that in the future.

[ev61]

yes, my biggest fear is an invisible rape suit... lol.

[Seattlantis]

I agree.
The skin-tight suit part sounds kind of cheesy, but I was thinking about this exact same thing while reading it.
I can't wait for it to come out, though I will be a little scared.

[ralfthedog]

Forget rapists and murders, think about the lawyers! I don't want to face an invisible law suit.

[ReVeLaTeD]

Your concerns are valid. All it takes is one lunatic.

- Reads article, where it says the location of the research facility.
- After chewing grass stalk, pulls up Google Maps and finds satellite image, plus directions.
- Hops into beat up pickup truck, drives to facility. Starts shooting.
- Gets hands on this, we're all doomed.

[styymy]

Its funded by the Army Research Office, so it may already be in the wrong hands. Its in its infancy however and still has a long way to go. I don't doubt the "Predator" race will be too happy about our potential advancement being able to cloak like they do.

[zigbeam]

John Edwards wish he was wearing one when he was visiting that hotel room in Beverly Hills
Hilton motel.

[benjaminstraight]

This is just like Lord of the Rings. And it will be a great app for our soldiers or spys.

[batvette]

Benjamin, when you say "our" spies, are you sure you're really a member of the "team"? In case you've been asleep, the cold war against the Soviets is over, but the Army and other government agencies ARE hard at work fighting, the "our" or "we" is this "NWO" or whatever you'd care to title it. Should you be unfortunate enough to be singled out and targeted as "undesirable" from their view behind the walls of gated communities, their "spies" will harass you until you're destroyed financially or commit suicide. Invisibility is the perfect uniform for them to operate in, and use through the walls radar to target ultrasonic weapons and microwave harassment methods. Laugh or scoff as you will, but do not forget these words, as if it happens to you they will be the validation you'll seek to retain your sanity- and maybe your life.
To the people seeking comfort in the belief deployment of such technology is far off in the future- why? Because you aren't familiar with the workings of the technology? Can you really visualize the practical knowledge that makes a chemical laser? Some of the more advanced nuclear weapons? Yet we have them.
Or maybe it's because the Army and military in general, have always kept the public up to date with press releases on its new gadgetry. LOL! I believe it's out there and had been in use for awhile, and I know little can convince you of this- but advise you that if you start to see greenish tinted matrix like patterns on walls around you, and lights in your house (mainly CFL's) dimming with power surges, and blurry areas in security cameras as well as when looking with your eyes, be afraid- be VERY afraid.

[talldarknugly]

I think you may need medication...

[katgrl]

Shades of star trek.....beam me up. A Romulan cloaking device!!

[ralfthedog]

batvette, I think you have been sniffing too many chemtrails.

[Save_Me_from_my_Govt]

If our government can find non-existent WMD's to go to war over, it's not much of a stretch to think that the primary reason for this technology is to find even better ways to "plant" things in a country you want to go to war with, then point to them and say, "See! They have _______! We need to premptively attack--NOW!" I wouldn't have thought we could go to war over non-existant weapons before... Now we know that it's all in a day's work for the wrong people.

I take this seriously, and I don't think it's so far-fetched to think that it has possibilities to be used in ways that are frightening.

[difusi]

Save_Me_from_my_Govt -

Let's talk about the facts . . . Your Liberal **** Dems VOTED for the war before it was election time. They are STILL funding it. Saddam, did use WMD on his own people , where did the the chemical weapons come from? Wal-Mart???

I get tired of dumb-***** with some axe to grind with the rest of America.



[CNET editors' note: Personal attacks deleted.]

[batvette]

But of course those in doubt realize that the military and our government always provide full disclosure and press releases of all their equipment and activities, thus you have full access to the complete depth of all this knowledge to base your doubt upon.
Can I get a show of hands of everyone who's completed an enlistment obligation in the military?
How about did so as the handful in a hundred in a technical rate or MOS with a security clearance of secret or above?
Now all of that doesn't make me anything special, thousands have. It does give us a practical education on what kind of callous bull**** the military's brass and defense contractors are capable of, and that combined with some research on the projects they've been up to, as well as the political climate in policies regarding who they claim the emerging "enemy" or "threat" is, concerns me.
As do the well documented claims of thousands across America who report being victimized by groups of stalkers in communities of all sizes, apparantly with government awareness, if not participation at some level. One Missouri lawmaker, Jim Guest, has tried to raise awareness of it. A man in Kansas recently got a restraining order against a man using an HPM/DEW to harrass him. Such an order only was possible because an expert in the defense industry acknowledged the existence of the weapon.
We don't know what the level of culpability of the government is, but after 9/11 the gov't expanded programs like citizen corps and USAonWatch and transformed them into Stasi-like cadres of informants, and ideologues joined in droves, seeking empowerment and adventure, while those in charge used this new matrix like system to further an agenda of control and conformity. Snitches on every block, vigilant against "terrorism", yet out of 817,000 criminal cases the DHS filed from 2004-2007, just 12 were related to terrorism.
You figure that out, and think of the equation that all that money thrown at technology to fight terrorists- but there really are none- so who are they fighting? Us. I've seen the snitches, watched their Stasi signal communications. I've seen vehicle perps follow people, intimidating them, they do it for fun.There are some new weapons being used, things it can be readilly documented the gov't bragged about money being well spent on a decade or more ago.
In a trial, a witness is called for eyewitness testimony for what he saw at a certain time and place. A person not present at that time and place would never be called to testify that it didn't happen, merely because he doubted it could, would he?
Your skepticism amounts to just that. The precedents are there, google MKULTRA or COINTELPRO. Now try operation TIPS. Most of its provisions were quietly enacted under different names.
Old dogs never learn new tricks.

[Harrison912]

This whole idea is a little scary. As with all new technology, when in the hands of the right people, it does a lot of good. However, if it falls into the hands of the wrong people it can do a lot of harm.

If bad people learn how to be invisible, there's no end to the bad they can do and good people will be more vulnerable than we already are.

Lethal weapons will be of no use when aimed at blank space but non-lethal stun guns or stun batons like the ones on my web site may be the only defense against an attack from an invisible person.

[batvette]

I'll further note I believe in the philosophy of your products. From a near fatal incident 24 years ago, I understand the concept of how owning a gun makes you much more likely to die by a gun. It emboldens you to be in a situation where you'll be forced to either pull the trigger, or be killed yourself. My solution, with a guy facing me holding a gun, and his partner walking up behind me going "click" as he cocked the hammer, with my g/f ten feet away, next to my car? I slowly unchambered the shell from my Mossberg pistol grip 12 guage, tossed it in air to the guy in front, and we got in the car and drove off, leaving two bonafide Hell's Angels members standing in disbelief- one with a new prize. I haven't owned a gun since.

[batvette]

Hmm.... you've got some good products, and they appear to be reasonably priced. I have to wonder though why citizens are moving to non lethal protection while police in our cities have been buying so many assault rifles and other high power weapons, that supplying the ammo for them left our troops in Iraq in short supply when manufacturers couldn't keep up.
Well I guess in the very near future, when a Blackwater mercenary contracted by the DEA to raid a cancer patient's home for medical marijuana in the middle of the night and the homeowner tries to defend himself from perceived home invasion robbery, he'll only be convicted of assault instead of murder. If he isn't riddled with bullets for his defiance, that is.

[leoneomeo]

If you are invisible you would also be blind until you are visible again.

[massfat]

Actually that's not true. If photons no longer hit you and reflect into other people's eyes, it does not mean that photons will fail to reach your eyes.

[fdunn3]

Oh don't start getting all paranoid! like they said in the article it does not apply at all visible wavelengths one in particular that would be hard to evade is infra-red since it is not visible but heat. Not too many weapons of war that don't have a heat signature, particularly human beings.

I have already seen a pre-cursor to this and it is primarily for vehicles like tanks, but even they put of a pretty heavy infra-red heat signature, not to mention a metallic radar signature.

[batvette]

fdunn3, you're not making sense there, you're pointing out it doesn't apply at all VISIBLE wavelengths, then go on to bring up the invisible to the eye infrared portion of the electromagnetic frequency spectrum. Whil you may be correct, you're bringing up an entirely different matter, and the general population still is a long way from access to affordable thermal imaging cameras, currently at $5k for a mimimally effective unit. I'd be ashamed to creep around at night with less than the performance of the ones in the $10-15k range currently.
(as well you bring up tanks, and they are working on noise cloaking but they're still hellla loud!)
See my first post where I mention a green tinted light? I think that this cloaking technology's performance can benefit from the same chromakey technology used in film making, like blue and green screen. Green may be the easiest tint to manipulate to fool the human eye, by flooding a given areas in hues of green it would be much easier for this technology to work- and you can take it or leave it, no concern to me, but I'm emphasizing the green as I've seen covert ops domestically exploiting what I was sure to be just such technology, interlaced with holography decoys to confuse the observor.
Figure if you've seen it, even with a clearance of classified or secret, those with a need to know at the top secret levels have been playing with the operationally deployed equipment for a decade or so. I was an AQ in the Navy in the early 80's, the rate is now merged but it is radar and missile control systems in fighter jets. What I did maintenance on was 10 years more advanced, particularly targeting computers, than anything in the public eye, or what they could even grasp we were capable of.- things like the VTAS helmet, where the pilot turned his head on both axis to slave the head of the sidewinder missiles- a look and shoot system. I wasn't allowed to even discuss it in public at the time, let alone its circuitry. When I was discharged iin '84 imagine my disappointment to find my job search with defense contractors was fruitless as their engineers were 15 years ahead of that. If the military is talking about their "gee whiz" gadgetry, it's not to keep us abreast of technology they are working on, it's to get us comfortable with and accept what they've already got and are having trouble keeping secret any longer.

[dracodvana]

All speculation aside, doesn't pretty much any new technology have the potential to be "scary"? New cell phones mean smaller monitoring devices, new alloys mean new weapons... I can't think of many advances in technology that couldn't be turned to bad ends with the right attitude.

Also, I suppose it would be really unpopular of me to point out that a TON of research and breakthroughs have been funded by a military of some sort or another. We've been motivated to come up with some pretty clever ideas when faced with defending something we love--or taking it from someone else.

[batvette]

You're right of course, man's greatest moments of inventive accomplishments are when he pursues ever more gruesome and/or efficient ways of killing each other. I can only see a good thing for invisibility in doing sneaky things to the enemy, however its real use will ultimately be distorted and sugar coated as it leaks down to local law enforcement on the streets of our cities. Remember "TWS" or through wall surveillance? They got that into the hands of our troops in Iraq in record time, for urban warfare, making no bones that it was for peeking into houses in an instant.
What they had was primitive and inexpensive. Fast forward a couple of years now and defense contractors are marketing, often through civilian subsidiaries (I would suspect to not alarm elected lawmakers when their cops request them) TWS systems for "life saving" and "antiterrorism" which are being snapped up and put in use nationwide. Depending on size and cost their capabilities range from acceptable to what privacy we all expect we still have to much more than most people imagine. For around $40k you can get a briefcase sized unit which displays on a laptop, a near video quality view of what's going on inside a house dozens of yards away- you can count the change in the pockets of occupants. Sold under the auspices of life saving or anti terrorism? My ass.
Since the DEA linked recreational drug use with funding terrorism, maybe they have a point. The public is aproving this stuff too. Smoke a joint, go to Gitmo!

[DigitalFrog]

"If you are invisible you would also be blind until you are visible again. " - not necessarily

The beauty of invisibility via technology is that you can copy the information from the sensors, and pipe it into a visor or goggles worn by the person. In fact, you could extend it to allow the person to see 360 degrees since their whole body would effectively be on big camera.

If you want an interesting read, this is the method of invisibility employeed by the main character in George Takei/Robert Asprin's novel "Mirror Friend, Mirror Foe" from back in '79. Maybe they should have filed patents..... :)

[jkbeaver57]

*"Well If The Old Horcrux Spitit Old My old Sp. Eadd. Boarding School Called "Yorkwoods Center. that Now is The Newly Reisen Phenix Spirit Of The New "Hogwartz magic Boarding School Of Witch Craft & Wizardty. Deam's it to Truley be So. Eh??

[DigitalFrog]

[PARSE ERROR 42] on jkbeaver57: Sorry, can't grok that.

[ItsFatesProblemx]

I want one!!

[He_And_Him_Studios]

Does anyone else notice how old this is?

[tropigurl]

He and him...uh not until you said something! August 10, 2008...why are they front page linking to this old article now? Strange!

[derilium]

lol. this whole idea of invisible people is kinda scary indeed, with people trying to be invisible while robbing. however, there will also be people who will attempt to counter this. people will try to have technology that allows you to see the invisible. For example, i think it would be possible if somebody set up a heat sensor.

[ralfthedog]

Cheap IR camera+paint ball gun.

[eastmanweb]

"...i think it would be possible if somebody set up a heat sensor."

(The year is 2014...) I just saw another iPhone commercial. They have an app for that...

[Sam Papelbon]

if you lay this on the ground, can you see china?

[Len Bullard]

OTOH, if you had the tech and could wrap a neutral buoyancy composite with quiet engines, you could push a fairly sizable payload a long way over populated areas.

Stealth is not one technology. It is a design goal using multiple technologies to achieve the goal.

[ralfthedog]

you guys missed the real story.

"This new mixture of materials has "negative refractive" properties"

If this is true and does not require super cooled gasses, this could do some very exciting things in optical computers.