MAKING CLOTHES 'TRANSPARENT' instantaneously as you watch has taken a step closer to reality thanks to Tokyo University team led by Professor Susumu Tachi. Before the voyeurs out there start celebrating too hard though, you don't get to see what's underneath. Well, not exactly.

The team has managed to create clothes that are covered in tiny pieces of glass which effectively become a screen. A video camera is then used to record the scenery behind the wearer and the results are projected onto the clothes. The effect is that the wearer appears 'transparent'.

The team has said that the system is still less than perfect. Unless an observer is looking in roughly the same direction as the video camera, the clothes will not be a perfect match with the background.

The claimed uses are for things like surgery, allowing a surgeon to effectively see through their hands. We think they are seriously underestimating the revolution this technology could cause once it is perfected.

The possibilities seem endlessly strange. Like the problem trying to find some space inside a changing room, the darned places will be packed with pervs. Or the fun it could become popping down to the bank to make a "withdrawal". Let alone the opportunities for practical jokes. At the moment, we'd settle for a carrier bag that was 'transparent'. It would make shopping so much more interesting.
Ha ha ha ha