Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Wearables

We’re only at the nano scale folks so you’ll have to keep those high school fantasies of an invisibility-cloaked romp through the girls’ locker room tucked away for now. Still, two teams of US government funded researchers under the direction of Xian Zhanga at UC Berkeley say that they’ve developed a material which can bend visible light around 3D objects, effectively making them disappear. While similar to the negative refractive properties of materials developed back in 2006, UCB’s so-called meta-material is easier to work with and absorbs far less light than those earlier products. As such, the material could scale to the size of invisibility cloaks to hide objects such as tanks or mischievous boy-wizards. However, that day is a long ways off. In the short term, the meta-material will most likely find use in the far less interesting (to consumers, anyway) application of building better microscopes.

[Via BBC News]

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Filed under: Cellphones

Unlike Brickhouse Security, we won’t go so far as to call this thing “invisible,” but when placed in the ear, all but the most eagle-eyed among us are likely to overlook it. The elaborately named Secret Service Invisible 2-Way Micro Headset comes with an easily hidden wireless transmitter that plugs into any mobile with a 2.5-millimeter audio output. Once rigged up, the wearer can have someone listen in on conversation in a room while also receiving input from said listener. Unfortunately, this likely Jack Bauer-approved gizmo demands a practically ludicrous $649.95, so it looks like we’ll be sticking to brute force and walkie talkies here. Check out a demo video after the jump — but be sure and kill the speakers first, alright?

[Thanks, Tony M.]

Continue reading Brickhouse Security’s two-way micro headset may never leave your ear canal

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Filed under: Transportation

While not the first bunch to try and mesh invisibility with military equipment, the British Army is reportedly staying busy by “testing technology it claims makes tanks and troops invisible.” Apparently, the (previously) uber-secret trials were conducted by the Royal Engineers and scientists from QinetiQ, and if eyewitness reports are to be believed, they were able to “make a vehicle seem to completely disappear.” The illusion (read: we’re no closer to actual invisibility cloaks) was reportedly created by utilizing “cameras and projectors to beam images captured from the surrounding landscape onto a specially-adapted tank coated with silicon to maximize their reflective qualities,” and if things go as planned, these elusive machines could make their way onto the battlefield “within five years.” ‘Course, it’s not like anyone will have visual proof of that, but we suppose that’s just the nature of the beast.

[Via DailyMail]

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