Well, what it purports to be is a shiftsuit (my term) or some kind of active-camouflage stealth suit. I think it's a video trick, but I know the science boys have been working on such things for years, using computers and cams and tiny screens embedded in material, along with some light-bending fiber-optics.
Camera picks up the b.g. and projects it to the LED screens covering the suit so it's like a chameleon.
Somewhere, I saw a demo vid of one -- can't find it -- in which a guy in a very bulky suit stood in front of a wall and switched the unit on. He didn't exactly disappear, but he got a lot harder to see -- as long as he was standing still. Even a fast computer has a lag, though, and fast movement gets ahead of the cam.
Still a long way from the Predator suits, and nobody in the military is talking about it publicly, but I think it is an interesting notion -- I've written shiftsuits into my stuff for years.
It might just be a video compression artifact--that video is pretty low quality, and if you play it fullscreen you can see obvious blocking artifacts from compression. When he slows down, and is against the gray background of the tank, he is much easier to see. This makes me think that it is more an issue with how the video was compressed rather than some sort of suit or whatnot.
The US dismounts are obviously aware of the guy running up to and jumping into their tank. He was dressed pretty strangely too-- why would someone be wearing full-body tights in a war zone?
Furthermore, why would he be getting pulled out right after an IED attack?
There are lots of things about this clip that don't make sense at all.
Alright, I saw it. What was I looking at?
ReplyDeleteWTF?
ReplyDeleteWell, what it purports to be is a shiftsuit (my term) or some kind of active-camouflage stealth suit. I think it's a video trick, but I know the science boys have been working on such things for years, using computers and cams and tiny screens embedded in material, along with some light-bending fiber-optics.
ReplyDeleteCamera picks up the b.g. and projects it to the LED screens covering the suit so it's like a chameleon.
Somewhere, I saw a demo vid of one -- can't find it -- in which a guy in a very bulky suit stood in front of a wall and switched the unit on. He didn't exactly disappear, but he got a lot harder to see -- as long as he was standing still. Even a fast computer has a lag, though, and fast movement gets ahead of the cam.
Still a long way from the Predator suits, and nobody in the military is talking about it publicly, but I think it is an interesting notion -- I've written shiftsuits into my stuff for years.
It might just be a video compression artifact--that video is pretty low quality, and if you play it fullscreen you can see obvious blocking artifacts from compression. When he slows down, and is against the gray background of the tank, he is much easier to see. This makes me think that it is more an issue with how the video was compressed rather than some sort of suit or whatnot.
ReplyDeletewow, that's pretty weird.
ReplyDeleteThe US dismounts are obviously aware of the guy running up to and jumping into their tank. He was dressed pretty strangely too-- why would someone be wearing full-body tights in a war zone?
Furthermore, why would he be getting pulled out right after an IED attack?
There are lots of things about this clip that don't make sense at all.