Wired magazine recently had an interesting story on FCC Chairman Michael Powell, who just started his own blog.  The main idea is to give an opportunity to techies and lesser known entrepreneurs to voice their opinions on topics ranging from VoIP regulation to the transition to digital television, and even using airwave frequencies between television stations for new wireless services.  Another reason why Powell claims to have started the blog was to motivate the high-tech industry to get involved with regulatory issues earlier, rather than later, when these technologies become mainstream.

MIT's Tech Policy blog reported on an interesting technology being developed in Japan: optical camouflage.  Researchers there are focused on developing the illusion of invisibility - much like in James Bond 007 movies or on Alice (a 1990 movie directed by Woody Allen starring Mia Farrow, William Hurt, Joe Mantegna and Alec Baldwin).   

The system is actually pretty simple, involving a mix of light-sensitive and light-emitting devices attached to an adapted reflective surface.  The devices are connected to a computer, which simply projects on each side whatever is on the opposite side. 

From the above picture, we can see that the result is more translucent than fully transparent, but there is potential for real invisibility, although with a lot more complexity.  In order to achieve full invisibility, the background must be captured from all angles and the camouflage itself needs to display it from all the perspectives simultaneously.  This entails a minimum of six stereoscopic camera pairs, in order to capture the scene from every single viewpoint. 

Source: University of Tokyo