Cambridge Ultrasonics is working on a technology to “look inside” concrete works. It uses the same ultrasound technique employed in hospitals to monitor growing foetuses in the womb and it builds up quasi-3D images of the interiors of concrete structures.
But the technology could also find an application in police investigations. “If there was a body in concrete from 60 years ago, it would probably break down, leaving a void,” explained Wayne Woodhead. “If you scanned the area, you could find the void, but whether it would look like a big hole or would be person-shaped is anyone’s guess.”
Via BBC News.

NASA and US security services are developing a new “through-the-wall audio surveillance system.”
The system uses a beam of very high frequency radio waves. Radio can penetrate walls – that’s how portable radios work inside a house. A horn antenna radiates a beam of microwave energy through the wall and if people are speaking inside the room, any flimsy surface, such as clothing, will be vibrating. This modulates the radio beam reflected from the surface.
Although that radio reflection is very faint, the kind of electronic extraction and signal cleaning tricks used by NASA to decode signals in space can be used to extract speech.
Via The Scotsman.
Picture from Victor Vina and Héctor Serrano’s netObject.