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Nanotube Paint Blocks Cell Phones on Demand

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wed Mar 01, 2006 01:02 PM
from the special-hell-for-people-who-talk-at-the-theater dept.
Communications
Kozar_The_Malignant writes "Newsday is reporting on a new nanotube paint that is able to block cell phone signals on demand. The nanotubes are filled with copper, suspended in paint, and can be applied to the walls and ceiling of places such as concert halls, churches, and classrooms."
+ -
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Nanotube Paint Blocks Cell Phones on Demand 50 Comments More /

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  • Cool but (Score:5, Funny)

    by Eightyford (893696) on Wednesday March 01 2006, @01:05PM (#14828303) Homepage
    That's cool, but where do you get the tiny little paintbrushes?

    • You mean these? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Spy der Mann (805235) <spydermann,slashdot&gmail,com> on Wednesday March 01 2006, @01:28PM (#14828624) Homepage Journal
      That's cool, but where do you get the tiny little paintbrushes?

      Here. [acs.org]

      Just to prove that science is stranger than fiction :)

      (Mod this interesting, if you want)

      • Re:Lead - Asbestos (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Analogy Man (601298) on Wednesday March 01 2006, @03:29PM (#14829960)
        I wonder if in 30 years the wonders of nanotubes will be a tragic tale like asbestos. Asbestos is a wonderful material with many useful applications, but that is not what most people think of...most of the general public thinks of lung cancer. Suspended in paint the small nanotubes will do no harm. How will that material age and what will be the environmental impact over time?

        As a woodworker I am aware of the respiratory issues with small particles. Any time I see "X times smaller than a human hair" I think lung damage.

  • "Nothing for you to hear here. Please move along."

    Thank GOD. But I still think the best option is to just dump a can of this paint on the offenders and then light them on fire.

    Much more direct. And you don't have to listen to them yap to the person next to them about how their cell phone isn't working.

  • Illegal? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Douglas Simmons (628988) on Wednesday March 01 2006, @01:06PM (#14828319) Homepage
    At least in the USA, cell phone jammers [globalgadgetuk.com] are illegal. Because this paint isn't emitting signals to accomplish the same purpose, could it be legal?
    • Why wouldn't it be? Its a purely passive method of damping.

      When I was a kid I helped my father build a corrugated tin shed. My brother tried to use his cell phone in it over christmas and found no signal. There have been no charges laid in connection with the construction of the shed.
      • "Why wouldn't it be? Its a purely passive method of damping."

        Your problem is that you're trying to apply reason to the issue. This is completely irrelevant when it comes to the law. In many jurisdictions, it's illegal to own a "bullet-proof" vest, because obviously the only reason you would want it is if you're planning to do something illegal.

        Don't you see, if it blocks cell phones, then it could also block other transmitting waves, such as bugs or undercover wired polizei. Anybody who wants to try and s

    • From the article, the cell company representative says it's illegal, but the company that makes the paint says it isn't.

      Which figures of course, but isn't an answer either.
    • Not really. It's like the difference between yelling really really loud and wearing ear plugs.
  • I would want to see warning signs posted at key places in buildings where this paint is used though... And a phone number to which I can forward my cell phone when I'm inside this building as well.

    Because..

    The very first time I miss an emergency call because of this paint, I will be suing both the building and the company that made the paint. I might even sue the guy who applied the paint on the walls..

    Some people RELY on their cell phones' ability to receive calls...
    • Some people RELY on their cell phones' ability to receive calls...

      Like doctors
      • Yes but by the same measure a Doctor that is on-call doesn't go mountain climbing and is 2 days away from civilization. All this means is that if you have additional responsibilities, you can't do certain things.

        What do you think these people did BEFORE cell phones? No different with this thing, except it's only a FEW places where they are restricted from going, rather than being stuck at home.
    • Well you would notice your meter dropping significantly, there are many buildings that because of their structure block cell phones even now. So if you currently work on the assumption that you can go anywhere in your cell range and be able to receive calls no matter what, you may be in for a rough time without this paint.
    • Just don't go in the theatre/church/classroom. You don't have a right to cell phone reception on private property.
    • Not just receive emergency calls - what if the guy next to you has a heart attack, and you can't call 911?
    • In a cinema there are often hundreds of people. The chance that at least one person out of those hundreds has an 'emergency' during the length of a movie is significant. This means that any time I see a movie I have to endure a significant chance of it being ruined because of someone else's problem. No thanks. If you're worried about emergencies DON'T WATCH MOVIES OR GO TO CONCERTS. It's as simple as that. You can wait for the DVD or buy the CD instead.

    • Re:Really cool.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by LordNimon (85072) on Wednesday March 01 2006, @01:16PM (#14828473)
      You'd get nowhere in that lawsuit.

      Cell phones are inherently unreliable, and the cell phone company itself makes no guarantee that your phone will work at any given time or any given place. Would you sue the cell phone company every time your phone fails to ring? Of course not.

      People like you suck.

    • "The very first time I miss an emergency call because of this paint, I will be suing both the building and the company that made the paint. I might even sue the guy who applied the paint on the walls..
      Some people RELY on their cell phones' ability to receive calls... "

      That's fine. But don't sue because you chose to enter an area where cell phone use is disabled -- you have no universal right to cell phone coverage, and BS lawsuits are a waste of MY money as a taxpayer.

      If you rely on your cell phone,
    • How about this - the theater gives you a vibrate-only pager to which you forward your calls (or even to which their conduit automatically routes your calls.) So if you REALLY need to be in touch you can be, but without annoying people around you. And you have to leave the theater to actually talk.

  • ...as long as the areas where cell phones are blocked are clearly marked as dead areas. It's something that you really need to know if you're on call.
  • This nano technology may indeed be a trillion dollar business like the article claims, but it's going to have to get the blessing of the FCC to be usable here in the US. If not, it'll be relelgated to backrooms of spy shops like all the other cell phone blocking technology already present.
    • Um, no. Since it is a passive method, this is not and will not be regulated. You can acheive a similar effect by putting a layer of copper shielding in your wall.

      The novelty here is that it can be enabled and disabled at will.
    • What does it have to do with the FCC? This is completely passive and emits no signal. I'm allowed to build a Faraday cage around my own house if I so desire. The only thing different here is the ability to switch the cage on and off.
    • The FCC can't kill this, as it doesn't transmit anything to anywhere, it's not even a powered device (persay). For example, if a builder decides to line the walls of his building with lead to achieve the same result, tough luck cell user. If an interior designer likes chromium (and they did in the '20s) and builds a lobby that is in essence a Faraday box, tough luck BlackBerry.

      Personally, I like the idea of creating a domestic space where I'm not being bombarded by microwave energy, around the clock. Just b
  • The "On Demand" portion seems to be a hack. The paint does block the wireless signals. For you to "turn off" the paint though requires that you capture the wireless signals outside the protected area and then rebroadcast them inside.

    Not exactly "On Demand".
  • Yeah, the calls will be silenced during the show, but when intermission comes, all those pent up calls notify the all the phones of waiting voice mails at one time. As soon as the signal is allowed through a bunch of phones all ring at once and everybody starts talking at once.
  • I am totally going to paint my bedroom with this stuff.
  • Perhaps airplanes [slashdot.org] could use a little nanotube paint as well?

  • The new asbestos? (Score:3, Informative)

    by PIPBoy3000 (619296) on Wednesday March 01 2006, @01:16PM (#14828469)
    There may be some serious health risks [jnanobiotechnology.com] associated with nanotubes and other small particles. Hopefully the companies involved do thorough health risk assessments before putting it up everywhere.
  • I don't think copper by itself is carcinogenic, but what about nanotubes? What happens when you need to sand down the wall?
  • nanotechnology, the emerging science of harnessing sub-microscopic organisms for everyday use

    And I should pay any attention to the rest of the article because ...?

    For what it's worth, the article also claims that the:

    paint relies on the wizardry of nanotechnology to create a system that locks out unwanted cell phone signals on demand

    This would be remarkable and is not true. Actually (from later on in the article), the company will:

    combine this signal-blocking paint scheme with a radio-filtering devi

  • people went out, doctors went out, parents went out, and we did ok.

    last Sunday in church (spare me the religion debate) a cell phone rang while the priest was consecrating the host. Jesus was pissed.

    if people could be trusted to turn them to vibrate this sort of thing wouldn't even be on the drawing board. but people suck.

  • You know, i'd have much fewer people pointing at my shiny hat.

    just trying to keep the Liberal Media out!
  • I'm thinking this might be useful in other ways:
    • Applying it on your car, to foil radar guns
    • Using it in offices to keep wireless signals from escaping (I know it's not quite the same thing, but close)

    As to people who need their cell phones (parents with children, brain sugeons, etc.), use a system like you have at restaurants that use the wireless pagers. They would be tuned to work inside the building; someone dials a number or goes online, sends a message to the theatre, church, whatever, and it's r

  • no-can-do (Score:3, Insightful)

    by engagebot (941678) on Wednesday March 01 2006, @01:21PM (#14828533)
    What we really need is people with common sense/courtesy. Don't have an obnoxious ringtone. Don't talk on the phone in a movie theatre, etc.

    My situation: I've got to wear a hospital pager 24/7. New movie theatre with signal-jamming capability? I can't go. Sure, I've got sense enough to keep it on vibrate, but i'm the minority. We have to resort to actually crippling the devices to keep people from being idiots.

  • can do the same with a sheet of copper mesh (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pz (113803) on Wednesday March 01 2006, @01:33PM (#14828691) Journal
    What's the big deal here? The paint is conductive. The conductivity cannot be switched on and off, but by reading between the lines of TFA, they have an antenna inside the faraday cage which can selectively provide connectivity to the outside world. You can do the same thing with copper mesh (and I have, to make ultra-quiet recordings of microvolt biological signals) to create an entire room that is a faraday cage.

    The only thing newsworthy is that this paint contains nanotechnology. Sure, that's nice. But the summary and title are misleading: The paint blocks, always. The additional antenna blocks on demand, and there's nothing special there.

  • RFID blocker (Score:3, Interesting)

    by idonthack (883680) <idonthackNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday March 01 2006, @01:57PM (#14828976)
    Could this be a way to block RFID signals? Wear clothes or a sticker made of this stuff over an embedded tag and people only see the signal when you press a button.
      • As much as we love to hate cell phone chatters, there are two serious problems with the paint proposal, though.

        1) Cost. Copper filled nanotubes? Doesn't sound cheap. I'd expect even a plain paint with a relevant amount of copper in it to be expensive, let alone copper filled nanotubes.

        2) Blocking emergency calls. Doctors on call, first responders, etc.
        • 2) Blocking emergency calls. Doctors on call, first responders, etc.

          In a movie theater? Seriously, society has gotten along just fine before cell phones in the past. If you have an emergency, walk out of the bloody theater and use a land-line from a receptionist or payphone.

          Just because there might be a potential problem without a technology doesn't mean that very technology is implicitly granted a *right* to be used.

            • Excuse me but what *right* do you have to silence in a movie theater? It might be a social expectation but in no way is a *right*. Tell me when and where you are going to see a movie next. I'd love to express my actual *right* of speech and talk during the entire movie and annoy the hell out of you. You do not have a right to not be annoyed by other humans.

              It's not him that has the 'right', it's the theater management. You don't have the 'right' of free speech on private property. (The first amendment m

              • "You do not have a right to not be annoyed by other humans." I honestly, and seriously disagree. I have the right NOT to be annoyed.

                You're both annoying the crap out of me; please surrender yourselves at your local police stations for re-education (and a free beating).

        • Re:People in movie theaters... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Pxtl (151020) on Wednesday March 01 2006, @01:58PM (#14828985) Homepage
          Sounds hazardous to me - little airborne filaments? Sounds like asbestos. Then again, I've done no digging at all to check, so I may be full of carp.

          At any rate, it seems like overkill to a problem that should've been fixed by the GSM standard itself - built into the GSM standard there should've been a mechanism to receive "silcence flags" sent by local transmitters. Church/movie theathre simply needs to have a transmitter in the room. First-responders could have special cellphoness that ignore the "silence flag".
            • Umm...folks...there's a *trivial* solution to the "But what about folks that need to stay in touch??"

              Go to movie theater, find seat, get number of seat, bring cell phone to the "cell phone check", which is outside the painted area, register it with your seat number. Minimum wage popcorn jockey sits and waits for phone to ring. If it does he takes a brief message with callback number and delivers it inobtrusively to your seat.

              It's how things like that have been handled for years...and the solution is n

      • Re:People in movie theaters... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by qwijibo (101731) on Wednesday March 01 2006, @01:45PM (#14828822)
        The problem here is that everyone is being punished equally by this paint. The situation that people are trying to address is people who leave their phones on ring and talk in the middle of a large room of people. The beating seems like a reasonable expression of democracy(mob rule against the person who elected himself a victim) in action. The people who may have a legitimate emergency interrupt them at any random time 24x7 often can take those calls without disrupting others. These people do not need to be punished. The paint does not differentiate between the two groups.

        When my cell phone vibrates during a movie and I look at the number to determine if it should go to voicemail or if I should excuse myself, no one is inconvenienced. Of course, I'm also not leaving in the middle of a movie to talk to someone who wasn't polite enough to inform me ahead of time that they are planning an emergency, so I won't even stand up and bother anyone.
              • The theater I used to work at actually did something along those lines. When a new movie came out (something teenagers and adults would see, like White Noise), they would show the movie in two theaters at the same time.

                When you came up to buy a ticket, you were sorted based on how you looked and acted (oh no, discrimination!)

                In one theater went unaccompanied teenagers, adults with really small children, people who couldn't get off their cellphone to buy a ticket, etc.

                In the other theater went people who lo
    • Imagine the lawsuit that results when there's a heart attack at a theater and 911 doesn't get there in time because they tried calling 911 and it didn't work

      Not sure how your phone works, but there are plenty of places where mine doesn't. If I go into the local Walmart I don't get any signal at all (which is annoying when you can't remember why you were sent there). Most of us wouldn't think it odd at all if our phones didn't work in any given building. Running outside to make a call is very instincti

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