It obviously isn't working too well...

ha ha ha

I heard about something like this being installed in movie theaters a couple of years back to thwart bootleggers.

Interesting article. What was missing was how I can become Mr. Abramovich's friend? Perhaps it will happen when he comes to Miami to dock his REALLY BIG BOAT in the U.S.'s only mega-yacht harbor when it opens in a few years at Island Gardens on Watson Island. Until then, I will continue to exercise my lips for lots of kissing-up.

That's nice tech, but if I were spending $2 billion for a ship, I'd want an AEGIS system, as well.

The first thing that came to mide is that it wouldn't tke much to change that "Blast of Light" into something more lethal.

Would like to hear more about the tech. Probably only works for the cameras that send out the flashing red light, but maybe the autofocus could trigger it as well.
"Does' work too well..." will probably win as funniest comment. Good job!

The first thing that came to mind is that it wouldn't tke much to change that "Blast of Light" into something more lethal.

Watch out paparazzi.....

Dear Mr A Bromine-Vice,

Apologies but following the recent theft of your yacht from our high security harbour we have been unable to identify the perpetrators on CCTV footage.

The reason being that for some unexplained reason, whenever our CCTV cameras swept in the direction of your yacht, the images were completely over-exposed.

We are endeavouring to investigate by other means the theft but as you will be aware from local police reports the Anti-climb paint, and self cleaning coatings on the superstructure and windows of your yacht appear to be unable to hold fingerprint impressions.

If I may humbly add that one bright note of your visit is that we were able to identify several Paparazzi who were found floating in the dock. The were all complaining of temporary blindness resulting in loss of balance, we of course discounted this because of the high levels of alcohol associated with this emplyment.

Yours in hope, MR T Leological.

Nice system. I hope nobody figures out that you can lock sensors on another object at a similar distance and set your focus and exposure values and then swing the camera to the boat and snap a pic.

That isn't a picture of Mr. Abramovich's new boat, this is a picture of Pelorus, the one he gave his ex wife in their divorce. His new boat Eclipse is 170 meters long or 560' and it didn't cost him $2 billion more like $300 million give or take $100 mil.

As for the lasers, they're not working Pictures of Eclipse can be found all over the web http://yachts.monacoeye.com/index.php and http://www.superyachttimes.com/editorial/2/article/id/3087

Boy you guys should get your facts straight.

According to wired.com it scans for CCDs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge-coupled_device

To be honest, Pelorus (pictured), is much better looking than the Eclipse. I'd take it over Eclipse any day. Maybe that camera thwarting system is to keep all the images out of the news that Abramovich spent waaayy too much money on an ugly yacht! Should have bought the Phoenix sub from US subs. http://66.83.181.250:8080/db/ussubs/live/submarines/phoenix_1000.php3

Hmm i dont think that thing works, not with every camera, i wonder what is the range of the sys. I am a photographer, i used alot of lenses... i asume u can snap a picture of the yacht safely with a sigma 500mm f/2.8, add on a 2x teleconverter, the result? a portrait of mr Abramovich taking a sh@t with you snaping that shot from almost half a km away. :)

As a user of laser trackers I will assure you that this type of technology is feasible and usable. If it works anything like the SMR trackers I've used it uses a camera system to do a quick find on certain reflective shapes and then uses a laser to do a quick scan of the detected area. Basically it looks for a certain type of reflective area in a certain shape. Because all lenses will have a certain amount of inner wall reflection you can map that and build a searchable profile for it.

Wait a second...how did they get that picture then? ; )

dur, if you read the post again is says the system actually has to be turned on to work, they apparently didn't have the system on when the picture was taken.

Uhhhmmm... I know I'm not that smart, but could an old school SLR with manual focus and shutter settings defeat this system? I would think any serious paparazzi photag would have one of these at the ready.

Reminds me of those ads in the old smut books of those glasses you could buy that could penetrate dresses and you could "see" nekkid wimmin!! HAHA

Well in the show "Thunderbirds" they had a nifty little device that told them if anyone was photographing their stuff(they wanted to secretive and such), though no masks and bright paintjobs didn't help either. Guss this guy finally got to the next issue, disabling said detected camera(ZAP!). Even the new K.I.T.T from the new Knight Rider series had some sort of sensor to detect cellphone cameras so to not show off its cool transforming sequence to anyone to Blog/Tweet/put on their MySpace page, let alone show to Detroit. Strange because it could hack just about anything networked or not at times it seemed.