White light 'blinds' film pirates
Found on BBC News on Monday, 19 June 2006
The prototype is able to locate the position of a digital camera, before overwhelming it with white light to render any recorded images useless.
The technology works by looking for the digital camera's image sensor known as a charge-coupled device (CCD).
These silicon sensors are retroreflective, which means that they reflect light directly back to its origin, rather than scattering it.
"The biggest problem is making sure we don't get false positives from, say, a large shiny earring," said Jay Summet, a research assistant at Georgia Tech who helped build the device.
They also believe that a real-world version would probably use a laser to "blind" the image sensor.
Even though camrips don't play a big role anymore, they plan to fire with lasers into the audience? Especially when they know their system suffers from false positives? What about people who move during the movie? Really, they know how to keep people out of their cinemas.