Have you ever imagined a phone that could give you X-ray vision? No, nor have I but amazingly it seems it may be available within the next 2 years. The mobile phone software is being developed by boffins at the University of South Australia.

The idea of it uses the phone’s camera, so that if you point the camera at a building, whereas before you would just see the image on the screen, you will also in the future be able to see what’s behind the building. Google Earth and Google Streetview already provide images that are used in databases and it will be these that are used to enable ‘augmented reality’, which looks like X-ray vision.

Only 2 pieces of information will be needed to provide the facility. They are the user’s exact location, and a 3D model of the area where they are. 3D models can be built using information from aerial surveys and GPS will be used to pinpoint the user’s exact position. Dr. Christian Sandor says that his research team is working with Nokia to build the X-ray vision app for mobile phones.

For full story go to smh.com.au. Reassuringly Dr. Sandor says people will not be able to use the technology to spy into people’s homes as databases only contain exterior views of buildings. What do you think of this amazing innovation? I don’t know about you but I can hardly wait for it to appear.