invisibility

Design

More Low-Tech Invisibility Cloaks, This Time In NYC

3:40AM Adam Frucci | Yesterday, I showed you Liu Bolin’s analogue take on invisibility. Today, I’ve got more for you: say hello to Fred Lebain…if you can see him. More »
Design

Liu Bolin Creates Slowest, Least Practical Invisibility Cloak Ever

7:40AM Adam Frucci | Liu Bolin is a Chinese artist who makes himself invisible. See him hiding there in this picture? But wait, how does he do it? More »
Science

Scientists Say Their Mirror Based Invisibility Cloaks Actually Work

11:40AM Adrian Covert | Researchers from Cornell and UC Berkeley say they’ve both developed invisibility cloaks using bump-shaped mirrors that can hide objects across optical wavelengths. Oddly enough, their designs are nearly identical. More »
Design

Invisibility Shirt Is Camo by Photoshop

12:40AM Mark Wilson | Generally, there’s nothing that makes me laugh harder than an “I didn’t see you there” joke to a guy dressed in camouflage at the mall. But here’s one better. More »
Science

The Anti-Invisibility Cloak Discovered, NOOOOOOOOOOO!

1:30AM Mark Wilson | Why God, why? Just as Man was on the cusp of a real-life invisibility cloak—otherwise known as the gateway to the secrets of international government and the girl’s locker room—some stupid-head Chinese scientists have already learned to thwart it. The theoretical “anti-cloak” would be a piece of material with identical optical bending properties to the original cloak. When the anti-cloak comes into contact with the invisibility cloak, it would bend light in such a way that the cloak becomes partially visible again. More »
Vehicles

A World in Which Cars are Invisible Looks Pretty Cool to Me

7:40AM Adam Frucci | It seems like invisibility is on everybody’s mind these days, what with the potential for it jump out of science fiction and into reality a few steps closer thanks to the hard work of a bunch of egghead scientists. But in the world created by this cool nes Peugeot ad, all cars are invisible. Well, all but the one they’re selling, of course. I don’t care about some mediocre French car, but the visuals in this ad are pretty top notch. Check it out. [Space Invaders via Notcot] More »
Science

U.S. Scientists Take Big Step Toward Creating True Invisibility Cloak

10:00AM Jack Loftus | University of California scientists today announced that significant progress has been made toward developing “metamaterials” for use in a legitimate invisibility cloak. The researchers, led by mad scientist Xiang Zhang, were able to demonstrate for the first time that they could cloak 3-D objects with these materials. As the article notes, and as we’ve shown here on Gizmodo in the past, previous attempts at invisibility were successful only with tiny two-dimensional objects. Not anymore, as this heavily military-backed project is well on its way to producing superhero special abilities, today. More »
Science

Japanese Men Perfect the Cloak of Invisibility Much to Japanese Women’s Dismay

7:00AM Jason Chen | Japan’s been tooling around with versions of invisibility cloaks for years now, but they seem to have finally perfected it. Theoretically. By using “left-handed metamaterials” to make electromagnetic control devices, researchers can generate lenses that either reflect no light or have a perfect focal point—the end result of which lets you create a perfect invisibility cloak to skulk around Tokyo with. If you’re really interested in the physics of the situation, you can head over to Nikkeibp, but we’re pretty sure the illustration above will explain the matter just fine. [Nikkeibp]
Science

British Navy Working on Developing Invisible Ships Using Metamaterials

12:00PM Sean Fallon | Scientists at the Britannia Royal Navy College are working hard to make the idea of an invisible ship a reality using metamaterials that refract light in such a way that it “bends” around an object, making it appear as if it were invisible. This would only account for viewing with the naked eye however—naturally radar cloaking would be an important part of the equation. However, it appears that this technology may be able to accomplish a lot more. More »