Cloak of Invisibility Coming Soon?

The idea of an invisibility cloak has made the leap from science fiction books to an international patent application. The ‘three dimensional cloaking process and apparatus’ for concealing objects and people (WO 02/067196) employs photodetectors on the rear surface which are used to record the intensity and colour of a source of illumination behind the object. Light emitters on the front surface then generate light beams that exactly mimic the same measured intensity, colour and trajectory. The result is that an observer looking at the front of the object appears to see straight through it — via Slashdot