29
October
2004
|
01:27 AM
America/Los_Angeles

Friday Watch: X-Ray specs

by Doug Millison for SiliconValleyWatcher.com


At the back of the comic books I enjoyed as a boy, the two advertisements that intrigued me the most were the one for a body-building course that would make me the object of admiration for a bevy of beach beauties, and the "X-Ray" spectacles that promised to let me see through my admirers' bikinis.

I never did bulk up like the Muscle Beach boys, but now it seems the school-boy dream of X-Ray spectacles has come true:


A third party developer in Tokyo, Yamada Denshi, has developed an add-on to Vodafone handsets, intended to be used as a night filter to allow Big Red's customers to take pictures with their phones in the dark.

Unfortunately, the night vision camera has an unexpected side effect - in the right circumstances, it allows users to see a lot more than they bargained for. As well as taking snaps in the dark, the Yamada Denshi infrared filter sees through people's clothes.


When attached to a high-end camera, the device can give the effect of seeing through some garments - it depends on how easily infrared can penetrate the fabric in question - and is reportedly particularly effective on dark bikinis.


Answering your next question, the device only works with one kind of Vodaphone handset available only in Japan.


Vodaphone is, incredibly, insisting that they would never put on the market a telephone with the ability to view other people naked.


I expect they'll come to a different, more profit-minded judgement, after the discovery percolates for awhile in Vodaphone's new product development and marketing organizations.


Link:


Peeping Tom filter lets phones see through bikinis by Jo Best, Silicon.com, October 25 2004


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