WITH the rise of camera phones, it is becoming increasingly difficult to prevent people sneaking shots of works of art, say, or classified military hardware. But now there is a system that can automatically detect camera phones and fire out rays of light to distort any pictures they take.
Previous attempts to prevent camera phones taking images have used Bluetooth or radio signals to beam messages to all nearby handsets, reminding owners they are not allowed to take pictures. Other technologies have required special software to be downloaded onto the cellphone before they will work. But neither is any good at stopping the determined, covert photographer.
"The key aspect of our technology is that we don't require the camera operator to cooperate for it to work," says Jay Summet of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, co-author on the research project, which will be presented at the UbiComp conference ...
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