MIT Invented A Camera That Can Read Closed Books (gizmodo.com) 92
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: In a breakthrough that will appeal to both spies and those who work with priceless but frail historical documents, researchers at MIT have developed a camera that uses terahertz radiation to peer at the text on pages of a book, without it having to be open. Terahertz radiation falls somewhere between the microwave and infrared spectrums, and the research team, including Barmak Heshmat, Ramesh Raskar, and Albert Redo Sanchez from MIT, and Justin Romberg and Alireza Aghasi from Georgia Tech, chose that particular flavor of radiation because of how it reacts with different chemicals. Different chemicals produce a distinct frequency as they react with different terahertz frequencies, which can be measured and distinguished. In this instance, it allows the researchers to tell the different between ink and blank paper. Complex algorithms and software is required to translate the frequencies being bounced back to the camera, allowing it to distinguish letters on a page. But it also relies on how far the short bursts of terahertz radiation are traveling, by precisely timing how long it takes to reach the 20-micrometer-thick air gaps between pages of a book, it's able to calculate when it moves from page to page. The report adds, "the researchers feel their system could be a fantastic tool for museums or other facilities who want to explore and catalog historical documents, without actually having to touch or open them, and risk damage."
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To win the $500 jackpot? Here's a better idea:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Breakthough use of new technology always = porn (Score:3)
Re:Breakthough use of new technology always = porn (Score:5, Interesting)
You just know 13-year old boys are going to use this to look at the magazines in plastic wrappers.
Well, at least that's more believable than the bullshit cover story of using this to catalog ancient textbooks.
This will be used and abused as a spy tool, first and foremost. It's practically inevitable. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this technology disappears from headlines as quickly as it appeared.
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In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this technology disappears from headlines as quickly as it appeared.
Cue Isaac Asimov's The Dead Past.
Re: Breakthough use of new technology always = por (Score:1)
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If the intelligence agency has physical possession of something, they're almost certainly going to be able to open and read it. They've put a lot of work into that over the years.
If the agency doesn't have physical possession, I'd suspect that using this technique requires too much equipment and time to be practical.
The obvious use is to read things that can't be safely opened, like ancient scrolls and the like.
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You just know 13-year old boys are going to use this to look at the magazines in plastic wrappers.
Well, at least that's more believable than the bullshit cover story of using this to catalog ancient textbooks.
This will be used and abused as a spy tool, first and foremost. It's practically inevitable. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this technology disappears from headlines as quickly as it appeared.
...And disappears from MIT ;-) And from public memory. ....Hey, what were we just talking about? Something to do with... books.. radios? I can't seem to remember.. Must not have been important then..!
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That won't be doing that for long. The radiation from these spy devices will zap their sperm to death.
Unlikely. THz is about 300 um. The most it is going to do is make you feel warm.
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You just know 13-year old boys are going to use this to look at the magazines in plastic wrappers.
Magazines? When they have internet enable devices in their pockets. Have you ever googled tits or pussy or something without safe search? Some of the stuff you can get would put hustler to shame. Magazines, how quaint.
Now that you can tell a book by it's cover . . . (Score:5, Funny)
The real question is how long untl it is $1 to order a set of goggles with this technology out of the back of my vintage comic book without removing it from the plastic.
This is years behind (Score:1)
Brent Seales at the University of Kentucky was doing this years ago. I do believe he's from the MIT camp though.
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The police can't arrest all the black people, stupid.
They certainly seem to be trying.
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The question then becomes why didn't poor white families suffer the same consequences and splinter the way black families have?
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I don't think crime is a result of being poor, rather it just goes along with it. For an analogy, compare the birth rates of poor people against that of wealthier people. Even though the wealthier can afford more kids, they're smart enough to not have so many. Poor people tend to smoke more compared to wealthier people, and you have to be pretty fucking dumb to start smoking these days given that for the last 40 years it's basically impossible to have grown up without hearing about just how bad smoking actu
Re: Not impressed (Score:5, Insightful)
Much of the modern black attitude is based on not being "disrespected". Not by earning respect, but by applying violence to those who "disrespect" you. By being the biggest, baddest (word not allowed for white people) in the 'hood.
That's not how Dr. King taught people to handle adversity, but Dr. King is dead.
Like most underclass minorities, they find it's not nearly as easy to stick it to The Man as it is to each other. So they do. And just for good measure, they fire their anger with a fantasy of "getting even" for generations of slavery.
The slavery thing needs to go away. Slavery has been illegal in the USA for well over 150 years now. Everyone responsible - both offender and victim - are long dead. At the present rate of interracial marriage, even the blackest of families is likely to be partially descended from slaveholders, even the whitest have ancestors who were slaves. And slavery isn't some sort of magical black-only thing anyway. The first slaves of Westerners in the New World were Carib Indians, thank you Christopher Columbus. And on top of that, with the immigration rate we've got, a lot of the people in the USA had ancestors who were nowhere near the American Slavery thing.
Yes, slavery is despicable, but you don't march into the future if you never take your eyes off the past. It's not 1860 or even 1960. There's a black president now and has been for nearly a decade. He may not be the best president we've ever had, but I'd wager that at least 8 people out of 10 would rather vote for him than either of the sad cases we've been offered as his successor.
But slavery is at best an excuse. Ongoing violence is like fire. As long as you feed it, it burns. To stop it, you have to stop dumping fuel on it. There are other, better ways to solve problems.
Re: Not impressed (Score:1)
In units of Libraries of Congress ... (Score:2)
... this could handily digitize 1 LOC.
More seriously, this could be fantastic for opening up old archives and making searchable.
Other uses (Score:3)
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I wonder how it would go with all of the manuscripts of ancient texts that were scrubbed over by monks and reused for Christian texts. It would be nice if you could rebuild a buried layer of text (there will have been ink residues left at some depth in the page) in this way.
Re:Other uses (Score:4, Interesting)
Different ink formulations, among other things. We take advantage of stuff like that even now to read many of these old palimpsests.
This is just another arrow in the quiver, but it's an important one, since a lot of old texts are stuck together and frequently too brittle to separate. I'm thinking especially of the charred works recovered from the remains of the Library at Alexandria.
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Depends on if they used BleachBit.
Herculaneum Papyri (Score:1)
Could this technique be used to read the Herculaneum Papyri?
Other ideas (Score:5, Informative)
http://arstechnica.com/science... [arstechnica.com]
"But now, a massive X-ray microscope at the European Radiation Synchrotron Facility has allowed researchers to see what was written on these ruined documents."
More at http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc... [bbc.com] too.
Inherit the Stars (Score:4, Interesting)
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Glad to see I wasn't the only one who reads. :^)
I'll just wait for the giants to come talk to us now.
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New old saying. (Score:2)
Now we can judge a book through its cover.
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The Wikipedia article you cite seems to be semi confused about whether 300GHz-3THz is "Tremendously High Frequency" radiation (1mm - 100um) or "Terahertz" radiation.
It's both. Like many things, that band has more than just one name [dictionary.com].
And 3THz to 300THz most certainly does include near ultraviolet...
I said 300 GIGAhertz, not 300 TERAhertz.
Your confusion is understandable, given the unfortunate etymology of the phrase "terahertz radiation". But, etymology is often misleading [about.com].
Ultimately, the only way to be sure about the meaning of a term of art like this, is to look it up. While not every source I have found agree with the precise frequency range specified by the article I linked, all agree that the upper end of the band in question is s
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And I originally wrote3THz to 300THz. THz, as in Tera Hertz. ... Is that not Tera Hertz radiation?
No, it is not. You attempted to criticize the original article for misusing the phrase "terahertz radiation", but you are the one misusing it. Your definition is etymologically reasonable, but it's not the one used by the rest of the world, so it's wrong.
interesting but (Score:2)
Good News Everybody, Prof. Farnsworth's F-Ray (Score:3)
"Fry and the Slurm Factory" with one of the great lines of the series:
"Ow, my sperm!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Compression Comprehension (Score:2)
They guys from the Hydraulic Press Channel should send them a book.
"Try to read this, suckers!"
Another Hollywood spy gadget is realized? (Score:1)
This sounds almost exactly like a gadget from Alias... Season 5, Episode 5, 'Out of the Box':
"There is a tomographic camera right on the bottom there. It basically acts like an X-RAY or a CAT scan. It takes images layer by layer. See? Look at that. This will allow us to take images of the Desantis files... without ever having to remove them from their storage container."
That episode aired in late 2005. Perhaps the writer should have patented it...
Alias is still on Netflix until the 15th of this month, for w
Book Scanning (Score:2)
Tell the different (Score:2)
it allows the researchers to tell the different between ink and blank paper.
But it can't tell the different between "different" and "difference."
Hoping (Score:3)
Still, it does remind me of what they did in Inherit The Stars.
here in the future we do this differently (Score:1)
Using this terahertz method, once you get deeper into the book the paper and print from previous pages get in the way.
Here in the future we do things differently. We collide waves from two different directions that could permeate the paper and print unaffected, such that they intersect at the point of interest, and then emit some new wave with a characteristic dependent on the material in which they intersected (blank paper, air, or ink), which can also permeate the paper and print unaffected, and can be d
On the bright side (Score:2)
Well, I guess now we know how Superman's X-ray vision works. I remember at least a couple occasions where he stops reading a book thru a wall (or some such) because, in his own explanation, continued use of his X-ray power could overheat the book and set it on fire.
Does make you wonder whether Empedocles and Plato [wikipedia.org] were from Krypton.
Heat death of literature? (Score:1)
This is a new way to cook the books. ... at a safe distance -- Joe Martin
--
I believe a man should follow his dreams
Nobody Mentioned The Real Use (Score:1)
MIT book scanning (Score:1)