It feels as if some sleight of hand is hiding in the way they're explaining it, that they've developed a "material that black & white cameras can see through, BUT THE HUMAN EYE CANNOT". The way I see it (heh), the human idea can't "see through" any material, because seeing is not an active process like that makes it sound.
Some materials block radiation from reaching our eyes, while some do not. Those that don't, appear transparent or translucent.
So, I would assume that this plastic blocks wavelengths that are visible to us, but that b&w video cameras have a slightly wider range of wavelengths where they are sensitive, and the material isn't blocking those.
So now it will become routine for counter-surveillance folks to smash all black plastic objects when sweeping a room? :)
I did my senior design project on an infrared related area. Things look really weird in the infrared.
http://imgur.com/SLGvT,y79tC
First image - can you guess which one is diet coke, and which one is water?
Second image - I was shining a 940 nm IR LED through my hand, you can see veins.
I can make this more interesting!
So webcams generally always respond to IR light. If you look at the front of your remote with our camera phone and press a button, you will see a bluish whitish light. Well, that seems a little weird at first. The light that's coming out of the LED should be closest to red... Well, when CMOS camera companies make their cameras, they heavily rely on the blocking abilities of the IR filter. They want to get amazing signal to noise ratios for the visible spectrum, and the combination of materials that does this is also absorb IR light as well. They can just use a coverall filter to get rid of the infrared light.
My guess is that it is just a plastic that is IR-transparent and visible-opaque, viewed by a camera with no IR filter. Actually fairly common - coke cola is IR-transparent. Not sure you can get an image through it, but I wouldn't be surprised.
Yup, you can see through Coke by opening up a cheap webcam and removing the IR filter. You can even make an IR-only camera by replacing the filter with a piece of exposed film, which is black in the visible spectrum and but lets IR light through. http://www.hoagieshouse.com/IR/
Most black plastics become transparent fairly quickly in the near-IR, it's something the dye designers aim for since it reduces the heat load into the material and makes it last longer.
Doing this with a regular (IR filter removed) BW camera and a polythene garbage bag is a standard science-fair demo.
As you get further into the infrared it becomes annoying. lots of things you think of as black, like black anodize and black electrical tape are transparent - so you get reflections and light leaks from things you would never think of.
It feels as if some sleight of hand is hiding in the way they're explaining it, that they've developed a "material that black & white cameras can see through, BUT THE HUMAN EYE CANNOT". The way I see it (heh), the human idea can't "see through" any material, because seeing is not an active process like that makes it sound.
Some materials block radiation from reaching our eyes, while some do not. Those that don't, appear transparent or translucent.
So, I would assume that this plastic blocks wavelengths that are visible to us, but that b&w video cameras have a slightly wider range of wavelengths where they are sensitive, and the material isn't blocking those.
So now it will become routine for counter-surveillance folks to smash all black plastic objects when sweeping a room? :)