The brains behind “The Image Fulgurator”

Here’s a follow up to our first post about “The Image Fulgurator” from Wired, more details, history and discussion of this project…

Julius von Bismarck’s ‘Image Fulgurator’ projects stealth images into the photographs of strangers, while keeping those images invisible to human eyes. Depending on whom you ask, it’s either a clever hack or an obnoxious intrusion. Naturally, we had to find out more.

Yesterday, von Bismarck’s device made its premature debut on the internet. Today we met him in his hometown, Berlin, to talk about the device, the thinking behind it and the inevitable deluge of e-mails from viral marketers wanting use it to smash their way further into our brains.

But first, about that name: According to von Bismarck, ‘Image Fulgurator’ comes from the Latin for ‘lightning’ (fulgur) and means ‘Flash Thrower’.