InsideTech

As a hunter, I can see the practical side of this. Ever hear of a "duck blind"? The concept is simply to camouflage one's self from the animal's sight and allow them to pass by oblivious to the hunter's presence.

As someone who has received numerous speeding tickets, I see law enforcement benefits in the form of speed traps and the stakeout of suspected criminal activities.

As an ecologically minded individual, I see the adaptation of the duck blind idea to observe animals in their own environment.

As a homeowner, I see this as a way to improve home construction by making the house blend into the surroundings a little better.

As a person with a dubious past, I see this as a way to hide things like illegal distilleries, fields of non-legal plant life, and ugly fat people at nudist colonies (not illegal, but it should be).

So, in these ways, I see invisibility as more of a benefit than something diabolical. I mean, who has seen the "face of God" and yet so many people worship and adore that being than fear it? You can't see live yogurt cultures, but you know they are good for you. You can't see Oxygen, but you know you need it. You can't see freedom, a soul, honesty, or love, but you are not afraid of them. No, there is nothing to fear but fear itself. FDR was right about that.

Imagining using this technology to make a human or other large object invisible is a far stretch of the imagination, I think. Scale down your expectations and imagine putting that cloak onto security cameras. Only criminals would want to defeat that measure, because repair techs would already be able to do so. We already have one-way mirrors, why couldn't that concept also be applied to this cloak? Shape the "carpet" so that it's a cloak from the outside, yet still allow light/vision from the inside.
Can you imagine what this could do for the auto repair industry? Magically remove all those ugly scratches and dents in seconds! :) No need for the car to "see" outward from under the cloak, either. It truly depends on what the resulting cloaked surface looks like to the casual observer.
The possibilities of this technology truly are endless, if you apply a little more imagination!

I am fascinated with such technological wonders Star Trek. I take pride in what people can do. However, I would keep us all aware of two things about how the science and military-industrial complex selects avenues of exploration.
(1) What is the end result of this advancement? Is it to enable war machines to increase its killing abilities? Is it just entertaining? is it advancing theory that may have beneficial effects?

(2) Is this development aligned with our human and planetary priorities which include, for example, preventing the destruction of ecosystems and eliminating poverty, over-population, and mass ignorance? These are truly difficult problems. I would ask our young future scientists to apply their genius to really difficult problems; not simple things like cloaking devices, but the warp engine of humanity's heart and mind with no one left behind.

An invisibility cloak does not seem to score well by these metrics. In the spirit of science, however, if there is some other fruitful potential toward improving our understanding of electromagnetic phenomena, such as solar energy, by all means let include it in such articles.

Bueno Suerte

Nothing new..Its been done many decades ago, They are slowly bringing it in into the mainstream...do not be fooled by the games "they" play with us common folks.

This also means anything inside could not see out, because any light would be bent around it. Such a thing might be used to block light sensitive things from receiving light, or another version might be used to block radiation (or to allow airline hijackers to conceal weapons). Or maybe by changing the density you could filter certain wavelenghts of light.