It's not quite a Harry Potter invisibility cloak, but if you've ever wished that you could strategically disappear, now's your chance.
A new "invisibility shield" could be yours for as little as £54 (about US$68) for the Mini version. Manufactured by the London-based Invisibility Shield Co., it's also being offered in two other sizes: Full and Megashield.
This is the second generation shield created by the company, who say that applications of the original Invisibility Shield have included hiding contestants on a Korean dating show, staying unseen when playing paintball, performing stage magic, and observing wildlife. However, users can't clearly see their surroundings through the Shield - and have to peek around it.
No doubt you're wondering how it works. Well, the Shield takes the form of a curved sheet of clear high-grade polycarbonate, which is held upright by a clear polycarbonate frame on the back. An array of tall, skinny lenses is embedded side-by-side in that sheet, each lens running all the way from the top to the bottom of the Shield.
As the user stands or crouches behind the device, the lenses diffuse the ambient light that's reflected by their body across the entire front surface of the Shield. That said, the lenses also diffuse the light reflected by the user's background across the whole front. Because the user is much narrower than their background, the light from their body is essentially drowned out by the light from the background. As a result, someone viewing the Shield from the front sees just the diffused background light, which blends right in with their view of the background itself.
The company Kickstarter campaign has already reached four times its target, so production of the Invisibility Shield 2.0 should be up and running fairly shortly.