Standout innovation in the realm of blending in

The Economist has a very interesting article on one of my favorite subjects: Camo. (Here’s a about camo from 10/17/04).) It’s about new developments and technology in the camo world. Check Consumedthis out:

“Adaptive” camouflage that changes rapidly in response to the environment is also in the works. TNO, a Dutch defence contractor based in Soesterberg, is using thin, textile-like plastic sheets embedded with light-emitting diodes (LEDs). A small camera scans the environment, and the colours and patterns displayed on the sheet are changed accordingly. The material is not yet flexible enough to be worn comfortably by soldiers, but it is being tested in Afghanistan with Saab Barracuda, a Swedish maker of camouflage equipment.

Pieter Jacobs, TNO’s chief technologist, says the defence ministries of Canada, Germany and the Netherlands, which have funded the development of the technology, consider such “chameleon” sheeting to be an urgent requirement. Maarten Hogervorst, a vision neuroscientist at TNO, says its performance is formidable. A tank draped with the sheeting and parked in front of a grassy slope displays an image of grass on its exposed side, for example.

Well if this comes to pass in a wearable form it would definitely cross over to fashion applications, right? Maybe you could have a shirt that changed colors to complement the surroundings!

Anyway, the article also gets into camo’s opposite number: Detection technlogies. Interesting stuff.