How to efficiently spy your neighbor

Jan 15, 2007 10:38 GMT  ·  By

Don't you just love those S.F. movies where the main character always carries with him a device which gives him the ability to see through walls (and sometimes women's clothing)? Well, you'll be interested to find out that an Israeli company called Camero has invented a device which can do exactly that. But the result is not quite the one you might expect.

In order to fully understand why I said that, you have to know how it works. And there are no technical problems here since the device uses a series of ultra-wideband signals, which are reflected and - in some cases - bounced off of walls and objects that are found in the working range. Using a special built-in firmware, the Xaver800 then constructs a 3D representation of the area. So it's not actually an image, but rather a representation of the area the camera can sweep.

Fortunately for your neighbors, the camera can only be sold to police and military forces so you won't be able to get your hands on one. Moreover, it's a safe assumption the fact that the camera can only render the structures that are being scanned and it doesn't have the ability to scan through your clothes.

Camero has recently received another $14-million USD for funding of the Xaver project, which brings its total funding to at least $20 million. However, this technology is not related only to Camero, since several voices have confirmed that some universities in the U.S. are also working on similar devices.

There has always been a lot of controversy regarding these X-Ray devices because they have a way of invading our privacy (or at least that's what some of you think). Recently, an X-Ray device capable of seeing through clothes almost provoked a mass hysteria. And I really don't understand that because such a behavior doesn't help improve the security of some very important areas. But I guess that the wall-penetrating camera is on the safe side, at least when you think of your privacy and don't carry weapons of mass destruction in your bag.