MIT researchers can see through walls using 'Wi-Vi'

If Google Glass isn't enough to get you worried about technology, how about a device that can see through walls using Wi-Fi? Researchers at MIT are experimenting with a system called Wi-Vi, which they say can track moving objects through walls by using the inexpensive, nearly ubiquitous wireless system. Wi-Vi could be built into a smartphone or a special handheld device and used in search-and-rescue missions and law enforcement, according to Dina Katabi, the MIT professor who developed Wi-Vi along with graduate student Fadel Adib.

But Katabi thinks consumers might use Wi-Vi, too. For example, someone walking outdoors at night who thought they were being followed might use it to detect a person behind a fence or around a corner, she said.

There's no need to worry about the person in the next hotel room watching you dress, at least not yet. The display has very low resolution today, more like a radar tracking an airplane than an X-ray showing details. An MIT video shows how it looks. But Katabi says she and Adib are working on higher resolution and the system might someday show recognizable faces. Before then, society might want to develop policies around how it could be used.