Heads up to ALL Railfans.
http://www.gatech.edu/news-room/release.php?id=1017
Allan.
Lovely, go to a movie and get a laser criss-crossing you looking for a camera. When my vision suffers who do I sue, the movie theater, studio, distributor, producer or all of them? I don’t care how low-powered a laser they use, the eye is very sensitive and easily damaged. Anybody remember the Southwest pilots that were partially blinded by a laser light show a couple of years ago when they took off from Las Vegas?
Here, friends, is where the terrorists and “pirates” have won and we stand to be the losers! This technology is the dream of totalitarian dictatorships, which have things to hide (like the truth) and paranoid governments, that have no regard for the rights of their people. Down in this sewer with them are companies that want to protect their ability to rip us off, or like totalitarian nations, that want to conceal their activities from public scrutiny. Certain Transit authorities and major railroads come to mind, here. This must be regulated so that we can photograph trains legally where we always have been able to do so. The regulations will be either worthless, or so riddled with loopholes, they will be less than worthless. We cannot count on the politicians to work for us here. They’ll vote with the money they get from the companies that want to prevent their image from being seen, if it is not to their liking!
Who’s paranoid?
Buy a digital SLR, in those the CCD is behind a shutter so it doesn’t show up on these systems.
The technology will be way too expensive to see the light of day for a while. Most theaters haven’t installed the cell phone disabling technology, which has to be much cheaper, and beside how strict can the movie theatres be with cell phone cams? Anyway the railroads will be the last to get it due to the cost to equip their property with them. The DOD on the other hand has got to be very interested.
Mike
And malls - many have no photography policies anyhow - and especially around Santa!
Laugh if you will…
The question is - How long will it take someone to create a camera that defeats the technology?
Probably not long at all. They would spend tons of money on this high tech system that would be fairly easy to defeat with cheap optic lenses. I would not loose a secons sleep over this one.
FILM RULES!!!
" have no regard for the rights of their people?" You have the “right” to make a copy of a movie from the screen so you can sell it right after release without any payment to the company that spent the money to make it in the first place?
If you read the article, the technology isn’t even to the point where movie theatres can use it, not much beyond the limited prototype stage. And like it has been said above, the railroads and transit aurhorities have far too much property to cover with this type system, which may not even work outdoors under natural sunshine.
Maybe you need to modify your aluminum foil hat so the evil lasers can’t read your brain at the same time. [:0]
Yeah, wouldn’t a beam of light be rendered ineffective by a polarizer? Heck, even I have one of those…
I was thinking one way glass type filter but a polarizer would probably work two. If they use infera red then a simple optical bandpass filter would do the trick.
Nice gadget to own if you want to hide from surveilance cameras. Just carry one with you when you go to do crimes. What goes around comes around.
Great, so if I make a phone call in a mall on my camera phone and that ***ed thing picks up my lens, it’ll fry my camera phone over nothing…
I call BS… I could see this on a DOD installation but in general public, no way. Its too invasive and not-decerning.
I do see a practical application hiding there somewhere. Could it fry the phone of the clod who has to answer his cell phone during a funeral? The last 3 funeral I’ve gone to each were interrupted by one so important, I have to take the call boob on a cell phone.[}:)]
Man that’s pretty disrespectfull.[:(!]
Since lasers use polarized light(that’s part of what makes a laser behave the way it does), a polarizer should do the job.
Also, CCDs are very sensitive to IR, to the point where virtually every digicam(except for infrared cameras) have an IR filter somwhere in the optical path.
Umm guys, it doesn’t actually damage the camera (if it did you could sue), and also doesn’t prevent the phone from working as a phone, so I’m afraid you’ll still have to put up with these jerks.
There probaly should be counter-mesures here.
Then there will be counter-mesures to the counter-mesures and so on ans so forth
Rats! I guess we just need to go back to the tried and true method: tar &feathers.[;)]