A January 17 memo seen by The Sun discusses the cameras, which can see through clothes.
It says “detection of weapons and explosives will become easier” and says cameras could be deployed in street furniture.
It adds: “Some technologies used in airports have already been used as part of police operations looking for drugs and weapons in nightclubs. These and others could be developed for a much more widespread use in public spaces.
“Street furniture could routinely house detection systems that would indicate the likely presence of a gun, for example.”
Now every writeup you see about this keeps referring to these "X-Ray cameras", forgetting apparently that X-rays are a specific band of light which pass effortlessly through human flesh and the likes. These special "naked" cameras don't do that...so can we please stop calling them X-rays just because they probe below the level revealed by visible light?
Beside cameras, officials are also considering systems known as millimetre wave imaging and THz imaging and spectroscopy.
See? It's right there in the article how these cameras are being considered along with other non-X-ray technologies. Yet again passengers requiring "full X-ray inspections" are brought up as if this is already a "seeing you naked" feature. It's not: as the Mad magazine parody of Doogie Howser once said, forget seeing women with their clothes off, he got to see them with their skin off!.
I unfortunately tried to find a whole thread of angry geeks up on this at Slashdot. But they're too busy freaking out about global warming and cheap PS3s to actually fact-check mistyped media science summaries.
(h/t ABFreedom)
