Cloak of Invisibility Coming Soon

davaguco writes "It seems that we will finally be able to make ourselves invisible" It seems like this story resurfaces every few months and then gets submitted a zillion times so here it is. Personally I'm still waiting for my cloak of evasion. 20% miss chance is awesome.

Pictures

[nizo]

The article doesn't have any pictures; one can be found here [jpassion.net].

Re:Pictures

[clevershark]

You just think there were no pictures! That's how effective the technology really is!

Re:Pictures

[systemic chaos]

Truly, you have a dizzying intellect

Re:Pictures

[Foobar of Borg]

Never go up against CmdrTaco, when Death is on the line! Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha- *falls over dead*

Re:Pictures

[Tackhead]

> The article doesn't have any pictures; one can be found here [http://www.jpassion.net/sitepix/blank_square.gif] .

Nothing to see there. Moving right along...

From TFA:

Prof Milton's team calculated that when certain objects are placed next to superlenses, the light bouncing off them is essentially erased by light reflecting off the superlens, making the object invisible.

Sounds an awful lot like the technology speculated about in Dean Ing's Ransom of Black Stealth One [powells.com] about ten years ago.

Re:Pictures

[LordMaxxon]

Nothing to see there. Moving right along...

Am I the only one who finds this phrase particularly appropriate here?

Re:Pictures

[servognome]

This Is What Scientists Actually Believe!

Science isn't about the "truth," it is about models that explain a set of data. Doesn't matter if their model is real, it explains and predicts a set of behavior. Once data is discovered that contradicts the model, scientists work on reformulating it.

Re:Pictures

[x2A]

err, I think it was a actually a South Park joke.

Re:Pictures

[JackCroww]

Just because you don't understand the science, doesn't make it invalid. You are not the final arbiter of all that is logical in the world.

All you do is broadcast your ignorance to the world. What really astounds me is how proud you are of your ignorance.

Re:Pictures

[jdray]

What I don't get is what they expect to happen to the light coming from behind the object being cloaked. Do they have some method for making it continue through the space that the object is occupying? That would be a neat trick. I think the last round of this sort of article talked about some sort of mixed camera/display setup that shot a movie of what was going on on one side of a vehicle and played it on the other, making the vehicle less than noticible by casual glance.

I guess it's just a wait-and-see

Re:Pictures

[Ryan Amos]

If anyone would read TFA, they would have noticed the last paragraph:

So far the researchers have only worked through the mathematics to prove that the device is plausible. The practicalities of making one have yet to be solved.

They haven't even made the prototype device that will undoubtedly be much larger than a cloak. A cloak using this technology is probably at least 30 years off (yes, that's a guess.)

Screw that!

[Gilmoure]

I want my Acme rocket roller skates!

Re:Screw that!

[xWastedMindx]

You can find those here [google.com].

Pretty amusing clip, I might add. :)

Re:Screw that!

[Gilmoure]

Oh man, I am so jealous. There were some commercials a few years ago, trumpeting 'true American heros'. This man definately deserves such an award.

Re:Screw that!

[Alsee]

Screw the rocket roller skates. I want that neat black paint the Road Runner uses to paint tunnels onto mountainsides.

-

Wouldn't it be easier...

[Kelson]

To create a Somebody Else's Problem field [wikipedia.org]? People are quite good at ignoring what they think isn't important (or what they don't want to recognize), so if you could find a way to convince people to ignore something, it would be just as effective as actual invisibility.

Re:Wouldn't it be easier...

[Vengeance]

Judging by the American news media, I'd say it's already been invented and is in active use.

"Certain Frequencies"

[everphilski]

Think cloaking from machines that are scanning on frequencies close to that of light... IR/laser. That is where this would come in handy. We know that IR_TRACKER_X looks on frequency (or frequencies) X, if we can cloak that frequency we can now move freely around the tracker.

"Selective frequencies" already in use by the Navy

[CustomDesigned]

My Dad worked on creating "custom fog" for the Navy. He studied propagation, e.g. this civilian paper [aip.org]. Then he developed a method of modifying droplet size distribution in fogs over the ocean. The end product (details classified) allows ships to create a fog bank on demand over large bodies of water (within 1 or 2 hours) that blocks enemy frequencies, but has "holes" for friendly scanner frequencies. The details include taking temperature/humidity/droplet profiles [allenpress.com] by altitude of the atmosphere over the target area.

Re:Wouldn't it be easier...

[A beautiful mind]

The current administration already patented it.

Just look at the issue of presidential accountability.

Re:Wouldn't it be easier...

[springbox]

so if you could find a way to convince people to ignore something, it would be just as effective as actual invisibility.

Yeah, you could just disguise yourself as a box. Works all the time in Metal Gear Solid.

Re:Wouldn't it be easier...

[Slightly Askew]

This problem has already been addressed by Scott Adams in his book "The Dilbert Future".

To paraphrase, as I don't have the book handy, he determined that in the future, public surveillance would be ubiquitous and the key to personal privacy is to be dangerously boring, thus giving nobody a reason to spy on you.

Judging by my sphere of contacts, I am apparently not the only person to read this book.

Re:Wouldn't it be easier...

[AeroIllini]

It isn't going to be enough to create a Somebody Else's Problem Field around the object to be hidden. You'll also need one around the detecting device so that people ignore it. That's a much harder problem.

Not if the devices around the object all have Genuine People Personalities(tm).

Nothing to see

[EnsilZah]

I really find it hard to believe that the "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along." i just saw is accidental, some meta-humour by Taco perhaps?

Re:Nothing to see

[DebianDog]

No his name is Officer Barbrady.

Hmmm.

[x_MeRLiN_x]

I'll believe it when I see it.

Re:Hmmm.

[Soul-Burn666]

I'll believe it when I don't!

Re: cloak of evasion

[ltwally]

"Personally I'm still waiting for my cloak of evasion. 20% miss chance is awesome."

Yeah, but it doesn't work against constructs or undead, which is why I'll take my epic level cloak of elvenkind any day of the week.

Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance

[cculianu]

Actually, according to D&D 3.5 rules, if you are invisible (as with improved invisibility), but are detected (ie enemies know where you are due to listen checks and/or maybe you just cast a spell, etc) you get a concealment bonus of 50%, which is better than that 20% evasion that you are talking about. So given a cloak of evasion or a cloak of invisibility, I would much rather have the invisibility, thank you very much. Even with regular invisibility I think it's a 25% concealment bonus -- still better than 20%.

Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance

[jt418-93]

seriously, get out and get laid dude.

Reply to mods

[ColdWetDog]

Do you even understand what the OP is talking about? Maybe try a wiki article for "sex" (and I will leave the actual construction of the google search to the student).

Or better yet, step away from the computer (just leave those mod points alone, they're too dangerous for you now).

Go upstairs.

Go outside.

And play.

Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance

[godscent]

I assume CmdrTaco is talking about some other game. In D&D, evasion doesn't provide any kind of miss chance. It allows you to take less damage on certain attacks when making a successful reflex saving throw.

Also, there is no cloak of evasion. There is a ring of evasion, though.

Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance

[Cat_Byte]

Also, there is no cloak of evasion. There is a ring of evasion, though.

Don't make me use my gauntlets of nuclear explosion on you. I've got the squirting ring of tobasco sauce on too.

Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance

[gEvil (beta)]

Because of your post, I would like to present you with this +3 Sceptre of Extreme Dorkdom. I'm confident that you'll know exactly what the benefits and disadvantages of wielding it are.

Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance

[ElephanTS]

brilliant :-)

Worthy of seenonslash.com - see you there . . .

Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance

[Ansonmont]

For those who don't know the SoED +3 offers the following benefits/penalties:

Pros
1) +3 Sci-Fi/Comics/Anime Knowledge Check
2) +1 Money Making Technology Attribute
3) +5 ability to skewer pompous know-it-alls

Cons
1) -5 Charisma score to all but the "Drow-knowing" of Female Humans.
2) +4 vunerability to Jock/Bullies/Bugbears
3) +6 affinity to "reading" Slashdot....

Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance

[Pope]

"+5 ability to skewer pompous know-it-alls"

Most dorks I've dealt with *are* the pompus know-it-alls, so this is some kind of backfire mechanism.

Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance

[jafiwam]

Yeah. You laugh now.

But when you are attacked by a Gazebo and already alienated all the other players so they won't help you will sing a different tune.

Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance

[jb.hl.com]

I'm fairly sure that most people who play D+D can't do much else but "wield their sceptres", if you get my drift.

Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance

[Maxo-Texas]

All kidding aside...

It's a social game- my daughter and her husband played it together in college (it's partially how they met-- it's partially how me and her mom met). They play in my game now that they are back in town. Unfortunately- her mom and I only made it about 10 years.

There were plenty of females in their college group.

My games have had a lot of females and couples over the years including a couple messy affairs.

My game was the basis for a sporting event (Ultimate frisbee) for close to a decade (if we didn't play- it didn't make). I still play ultimate twice a week and just last week they commented on my showing a bit of a six-pack.

As for me... well I've probably seen more action than you have unless you are an NBA star and none of it through clubs or with "club" girls. A surprising amount through Everquest including a couple trips to Vegas.

All of this takes money of course- which being a geek in the 80's made pretty easy to do in the 90's and now. I learned a lot of skills writing my D&D utilities in apple basic and cobol.

Are some D&D folks massive nerds? Sure-- but so are some Harley motorcycle fans. Are they happy? If so why pick on them unless it makes you feel better about your own life (which undoubtably lacks perfection in some way too).

Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance

[Arivia]

I'd take the cloak of evasion instead; been awhile since I've been item-poking, but it's trivially easy to generate invisibility/concealment effects, while it's quite difficult to get the very useful evasion ability.

Apparently not quite reality yet

[Marxist Hacker 42]

From the end of TFA: So far the researchers have only worked through the mathematics to prove that the device is plausible. The practicalities of making one have yet to be solved.

Re:Apparently not quite reality yet

[BaronHethorSamedi]

Ah, but try proving the non-existence of an invisible device...

Slashdotters already have that power

[kimvette]

Slashdotters already have the power of invisibility. They can snipe other users with impunity via the Anonymous Coward feature. ;)

Re:Slashdotters already have that power

[houstonbofh]

Motorcyclists have had this power far longer that slashdot AC's.

Re:Slashdotters already have that power

[Em Adespoton]

Sadly, actual functioning of the motorcycle invisibility effect is extremely erratic... it tends to turn on only when you don't want it to. I'll leave the examples up to the reader :)

Re:Slashdotters already have that power

[djdavetrouble]

Slashdotters already have the power of invisibility.

It only works against female humans for some reason though.
It is more like a cursed potion of invisibility from females if you really want to describe the artifact.
I suspect that a 12 pack of mountian dew a day combined with excessive cheeto consumption metabolizes
this potion inside the slashdotters body.

Tesla did it!

[cyber_rigger]

Sounds like a rehash of a phase conjugate mirror.

http://www.cheniere.org/books/analysis/pc_wave.htm [cheniere.org]

Re:Tesla did it!

[blincoln]

Sounds like a rehash of a phase conjugate mirror.

Except, you know, possible in the real world. Tesla was brilliant, but towards the end he obviously cracked, and the people that invent stories of Russian scalar wave forcefields are worse.

Re:Tesla did it!

[drinkypoo]

From what I've read, Tesla didn't crack until after his power transmission prototype burned down - after which point he did very little work.

Caution, YASD

[dmeranda]

You pick up a tattered cape (K unpaid). Only $250 for you.
You put on the tattered cape.
Suddenly, you can see through yourself.
The nurse hits.
You can not remove the cloak, it seems to be cursed.
The nurse hits.
The floor is too hard to dig here.
Really attack Wengretik the shopkeeper?
Wengretik strikes at thin air.
The nurse hits.
Wengretik hits. Wengretik hits.
You die.

Re:Caution, YASD

[SheeEttin]

Die? (y/n) (n) n
You pick up a forked wand.
You zap a forked wand.
You feel a wrenching sensation.
You drink a ruby potion.
Ooph! This tastes like liquid fire!
You read a scroll labeled ELBIB YLOH.
Being confused, you mispronounce the magic runes.
Your tattered cloak falls to pieces!
Death touches you! You die...

Invisible... or black?!??

[Izhido]

... when certain objects are placed next to superlenses, the light bouncing off them is essentially erased by light reflecting off the superlens, making the object invisible.

Maybe I'm getting this the wrong way, but if the object "absorbs" the light coming to it through the lens, wouldn't that object be perceived as black? I thought "invisible" is when any light coming behind the object passes through it, and into the observer's eye, with no obstacles whatsoever. But maybe it's just me...

Re:Invisible... or black?!??

[dhj]

That's exactly true for human vision and the requirements for true invisibility... However, radar isn't quite as sophisticated as human vision. Rendering an object black is essentially the same as rendering it invisible because radar systems detect the reflection of radar off of objects to determine their location. The radar is actively transmitted and I imagine it would be very difficult to determine the difference between lack of reflection from dissipation vs a lack of reflection from absorbance of an

Re:Invisible... or black?!??

[Em Adespoton]

If I recall correctly, something similar to this was used in the serbo-croatian conflict; one side found that they could detect incoming airborne objects (planes, missiles, etc.) by detecting "holes" in cellphone broadcast beacon radiation. They were basicly able to see every location in the sky where reflection was either greater or less than it should be.

True

[aardwolf64]

Yes, in the article they said that they haven't yet worked out a way to make the blanket itself invisible. Heck, I have a quilt that my grandmother made me that will make me disappear. If only I could somehow make the quilt invisible itself. Maybe I should post an article and submit it to slashdot...

Re:Invisible... or black?!??

[ichigo 2.0]

However, the light coming from the sources behind the object would not be able to pass through the "invisible" object, thus causing an object-shaped black area in front of the background.

Re:Invisible... or black?!??

[chgros]

Unless that device works directly on your brain (which I doubt), what you say is complete nonsense. The absence of light is perceived as black.

Re:Invisible... or black?!??

[MBGMorden]

Mod parent up. Quick little experiment: turn out all lights in a room (and seal it really well). You might not be able to see your hand right in front of your face, but you can quite clearly see the color black all around you. That's how the eye reacts to no light coming in.

For human perception, if it were to simply not relect back light, you'd have a visible black "hole" in your vision. Suspicious to say the least. If you see a human shapped black form run across the room then it's not going to fool a

Another Jack Bauer fact...

[flagstone]

Didn't Jack Bauer already employ the "hoodie of invisibility" a couple of weeks (hours?) ago when sneaking onto the airplane?

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I must not be a big enough nerd. I thought the cloak of evasion was something that helped you pay less taxes.

concepts are here

[mikesd81]

I can only imagine the power it would take to run a cloak like in Start Trek or Stargate, howerver certain concepts are here. For instance Active Camoflage [wikipedia.org]. Granted it's not refracting light around the object, but it still gets the same result. I don't think we'll see a personal cloaking device, or for that matter one for a ship (where it makes it invisible) for a long time.

Keep it Away

[Luscious868]

Keep it away from future Dick Cheney hunting parties. He already shoots at people he can see, imagine the damage something like this could cause.

/. is the invisibility club

[blair1q]

most slashdotters can make themselves invisible simply by entering a room

(you're nodding your head right now, aren't you?)

erm... are they sure they have the physics right

[moochfish]

Prof Milton's team calculated that when certain objects are placed next to superlenses, the light bouncing off them is essentially erased by light reflecting off the superlens, making the object invisible.

Wouldn't that make the cloak appear like a big black void of light?? Making things "invisible" requires light from the objects behind the cloak to pass through it.

No, that would be transparent

[gwhenning]

Invisible can merely be concealed in such a manner as to not be detectible to the eye. Transparent allows light to pass through without distortion. Although this sounds more translucent, light passes through with slightly noticible effect.

Main Entry: invisible
Pronunciation: (")in-'vi-z&-b&l
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin invisibilis, from in- + visibilis visible
1 a : incapable by nature of being seen b : inaccessible to view : HIDDEN
2 : IMPERCEPTIBLE, INC

Re:erm... are they sure they have the physics righ

[AndreiK]

Just putting on a normal cloak, assuming it's not translucent, would make you invisible by your definition. Somehow I think you miss the point.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Radar?

[RickPartin]

Me is confused

"Effectively, they are making a piece of space seem to disappear, at least as far as light is concerned."

And then

Prof Pendry said the technology has great potential for hiding objects from radar

So they've figured out how to bend light for optical camo. Neeto. Now how in the hell does this have anything to do with radar?

Re:Radar?

[JedaFlain]

Radio waves (which RADAR uses) are simply light waves. Radar works by bouncing the waves off an object. If this device refracts the light in such a way that it pass around the object without reflecting off of it, then the radio waves would not be able to return a signal to the radar station.

Re:Radar?

[PhxBlue]

So they've figured out how to bend light for optical camo. Neeto. Now how in the hell does this have anything to do with radar?

Umm, radar is light

.

Ummm... I have one in my bathroom...

[phamlen]

From the article:
The cloaking device relies on recently discovered materials used to make superlenses that make light behave in a highly unusual way. Instead of having a positive refractive index - the property which makes light bend as it passes through a prism or water - the materials have a negative refractive index, which effectively makes light travel backwards.

Trust scientists to come up with a complicated term for "mirror" ... :)

The commercial

[bastardknight]

Can you seen me now? .... no? good. Can you see me now? .... no? Good. Can you see me now? .... no? Good.

BBC News article

[malsdavis]

BBC News also has an article on this from a spaceship cloaking perspective:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4968338.stm [bbc.co.uk]

But have you seen it?

[azav]

I saw the technology at the Wired Nextfest in San Francisco, about a year ago.

If you're standing, looking straight on to the "invidible item" it sorta works.

Otherwise, there's a fair amount more work to be done.

Re:But have you seen it?

[smallfries]

However, the authors have so far only done the maths to verify that the concept could work. Building such a device would undoubtedly pose a significant challenge.

Come on, just admit that you're talking shit.

Painting something black doesn't make it invisible

[dpbsmith]

All of these "cloaking" stories suffer from basically the same problem. Making something invisible is much, much more complicated than blocking light, or cancelling light, or anything like that.

The article says, rather imprecisely, "when certain objects are placed next to superlenses, the light bouncing off them is essentially erased by light reflecting off the superlens, making the object invisible."

But "erasing" the light reflecting off an object doesn't make it invisible, any more than painting a car black... even matte black... makes it invisible.

In a dark room, if you cover a light with a black box it becomes invisible. When viewing a star from the earth, if it is occulted by, say, the moon passing between you and the object, it becomes invisible. If I pull a red cloak over myself, covering myself completely, you can no longer see me. You cannot tell who I am and if I stand very still perhaps you cannot tell that I am not a statue, so, in a sense, I have become invisible.

But, to become invisible in the sense of H. G. Wells' "The Invisible Man," or a Star Trek cloaking device, or James Bond's invisible car, or what have you, requires much more than "not being able to see" the object. It means not being able to detect the presence of the object... under real-world lighting conditions, with real-world scenes _behind_ the object, and from more than one vantage point at the same time.

That last one is the problem with many of these schemes. It doesn't do any good to make an object invisible when viewed by your right eye if there are "matte lines" around it when viewed with your left eye. It doesn't do a lot of good to make an object invisible as viewed from one soldier if it is visible to everyone else in the platoon.

Re:Painting something black doesn't make it invisi

[drinkypoo]

Well, it will make you invisible in the dark...

Re:Painting something black doesn't make it invisi

[polymath69]

James Bond had an invisible car? I don't remember seeing that...

Invisible cars... *snap* that explains it! Here it is, after the year 2000 and I'm always wondering, where are all the flying cars? They must be invisible. So simple an explanation... I wonder why it never occured to me before...

But seriously, the biggest problem with traditional invisibility is that the user would be blinded, as any photon sensed by the user is one not passed through. The third biggest problem would be non-invisible s

Re:Painting something black doesn't make it invisi

[thelexx]

Going with the general spirit of dorkiness in the rest of this discussion, I'll point out that Bond had no invisible car and that you're most likely thinking of Wonder Woman's plane.

Re:Painting something black doesn't make it invisi

[thelexx]

Holy shit, there was an invisible car!

"Co-producer Michael Wilson of EON Productions said the invisible car in "Die Another Day" had begun to dip the hugely successful movie series into the realm of the unbelievable."

Never saw that one. Now I'm REAL glad.

Re:Painting something black doesn't make it invisi

[PitaBred]

Well, they make it imprecise because the journalist and/or most readers quite often don't have the technical capability to grasp many of these rather involved concepts in a short article. But the article did give a hint in that it leverages a negative index of refraction. It basically "bends" light around something. For something to 'appear', light has to bounce off it or be emitted from it, and then enter a detector/your eye/whatever. If it never gets the "light bouncing off of it" part, then it's invi

But the next 007 movie will have time travel

[gelfling]

Hollywood is always one step ahead. We had invisible cars years ago. Just wait until we have time travel - slight time travel mind you maybe +/- 60 seconds.

I've had my cloak for some time.

[3seas]

It works like this. At work I can be "putting out a fire" (a phrase to describe a crisis rush job) and talking to someone about what needs to be done, perhapos the person I'm putting the fire out for. But even then the floor sweeper person (the lowest position at the company) can step up to us and all the sudden I'm wearing a cloak. Attention shifts from the person I'm talking with, to that person and the floor sweeper.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to make money off this cloak...

Can't be THAT new

[Uninvited Guest]

All of my clothing in high school must have been made of this material.

Magnetic Invsibility is More Important

[Paul Slocum]

In the case of large vehicles/transports in a huge space (suggested by their Star Trek reference), magnetic invisibility is probably most important. And it's my understanding that magnetic cloaking devices do exist for some navy vessels -- systems of magnetometers attached to large electromagnets designed to cancel out the magnetic field.

Star Trekken!

[steveo777]

Spock:
It's light, Jim! But not as we know it. Not as we know it, not as we know it. It's light, Jim! But not as we know it, Captain.

Negative refractive index

[mypalmike]

A negative refractive index bends refracted light to the same side of the tangent line as the incident ray. While certainly interesting, I don't see how this could possibly be used to cloak a nearby object. It could make for some really cool sunglasses though.

Positive refraction
  T
  |/
---
/
 
Negative refraction
  T
\|
---
/

I ALREADY HAVE THE POWER OF INVISIBILITY!

[rubberbando]

At least to women anyway, I smile and say hello and they don't seem to see me. Go figure. :-P

I tried to buy one of these...

[scovetta]

I tried to buy one of these but all I got in the mail was an empty box...

Cloak of Invisibility Coming Soon?

[seven of five]

Cloak of Stupidity Already Here!

Re:Yesss finally I will be able to....

[Professr3]

Do you realize how wrong that sounds?

Re:Yesss finally I will be able to....

[moochfish]

I assume it sounds wrong because he's talking about eating a mathematical constant right? ;D

Re:Wouldn't...

[kimvette]

No, but a mosaic of microscopic convex mirrors might. The effect is such that you get the kind of "invisibility" that a chameleon does; the material would refract (or in the case of mirrors reflect) a blending of colours from surrounding objects, such that when an object is motionless it becomes very hard to pick out from the background due to the lack of contrast. It might be similar in appearance to the "invisibility" you see in the Predator movies. Not 100% invisible, but more of a shimmering, blended-in look, only it would not be transparent. If an object were to move behind the camoflauged object, you would immediately be able to pick it out from the background and target it. That's my guess, anyhow.

A single mirror wouldn't cut it - if a flat mirror, you'd see a singular object from elsewhere in the region, or if a convex mirror, you'd see yourself in the mirror, along with your background. It would stand right out from the background, like an AC troll in an otherwise-reasonable discussion. ;)

Re:Wouldn't...

[kimvette]

It sure would. Well, such things would be visible to thermal imaging cameras (chilled thermal imagnig cameras, to be precise, not the "cheap" $8,000 units), and as far as near-infrared (940nm-950nm cameras which use conventional CCDs and optics) are concerned, those rely on reflected IR in the close-to-visible spectrum rather than far-IR thermal radiation, so it would depend on a) how reflective is the surrounding surface (mud, sand, etc. are often not very reflective in that region, vegetation is extremel

Re:Klingons vs. Romulans

[Umbral Blot]

I don't know about the other series, but in DS9 the Klingons had cloak.

Re:Klingons vs. Romulans

[XenoRyet]

Romulans developed the cloak, and traded it to the Klingons in exchange for warp drive, which they had not yet developed.

Re:Klingons vs. Romulans

[BootNinja]

I actually think the trade was cloak for a certain class of Bird of Prey, not warp drive. However, the Vulcans made first contact with Earth, not the Romulans. The Romulans are a sister race to the Vulcans. They both evolved on Vulcan, and then during the Time of Sarek, when Vulcans were coming very close to the point of destroying themselves through constant war, Sarek, the Vulcan "Father of Logic", convinced the majority of the population to learn to suppress their emotions, a (comparatively) small sec

That's OK

[Salsaman]

If it only blocks one wavelength of light, you just paint the object that colour.

Re:It seems a phletora of new laws would be coming

[ichigo 2.0]

One would think that the huge lens floating near the invisible person is a huge giveaway. :P