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[IP] Crave privacy? New tech knocks out digital cameras - CNet - 9-19-05





Begin forwarded message:

From: Josh Duberman <pivotalinfo@xxxxxxx>
Date: September 19, 2005 9:02:59 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Crave privacy? New tech knocks out digital cameras - CNet - 9-19-05
Reply-To: pivotalinfo@xxxxxxx


Hi Dave - For IP, if you like - extract below, the entire article is at
http://news.com.com/2102-7337_3-5869832.html?tag=st.util.print

Thanks and best wishes - Josh
---------
Crave privacy? New tech knocks out digital cameras  - CNet - 9-19-05
http://news.com.com/2102-7337_3-5869832.html?tag=st.util.print

"....The Georgia Tech system essentially exploits the "retroreflective" property of digital camera lenses. When light strikes a retroreflective surface, a portion of the light bounces back to the original source. While eyeglasses, bottles, watches and other glass surfaces are retroreflective, a coating on virtually all digital camera lenses puts cameras in a class of their own.

"The film atop lenses (is) highly reflective," said Patel. "A lot of people probably have known this but they haven't thought about leveraging it."

In this system, a device bathes the region in front of it with infrared light. When an intense retroreflection indicates the presence of a digital camera lens, the device then fires a localized beam of light directly at that point. Thus, the picture gets washed out.

The neutralizing light continues until the camera lens can no longer be detected, which prevents video cameras from capturing clear footage.

For added security, the system emits light beams in a pattern that prevents cameras from compensating for the light. (In the lab prototype, the video camera, with its built-in infrared beam, serves as the camera detector, while the projector is the neutralizer.)

The technology can detect and block multiple cameras and works on cameras with either CCD or CMOS imagers <http://news.com.com/Picture +this+A+new+breed+of+cameras/2009-1006_3-5559249.html?tag=nl>, which are used in the vast majority of digital cameras.

The neutralizing light is also highly focused to minimize distractions. "We only light up pixels where the reflection is coming from," Patel said...."

--
Josh Duberman, Pivotalinfo LLC
pivotalinfo@xxxxxxx; Cell:(425) 591-8200;
Information For Solutions In Business & Science





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