Gizmodo pal Paul Boutin has been writing up a storm over at Slate lately. His latest piece is about night-vision gadgets, which cost less than a hundred bucks these days. Paul actually takes one for a spin:
In urban tests, the Aero let me read the license plates of cars parked overnight on my block and watch local winos fumble with the contents of their brown paper bags at 4 a.m. Its super-sensitive vision could sometimes see through a slinky dress to reveal the outlines of underwear. But the more shocking discovery was that I wasn’t alone in the dark. Through the Aero’s eyepiece, normally invisible light sources shone as brightly as regular bulb. Motion detectors gleamed from doorways. Some downtown buildings sported infrared security cameras (why not just use a 1,000-watt floodlight, I don’t know). Most surprising of all, other night-vision users were out and about. The insides of their scopes shone back at me like glowing green eyes whenever our gazes crossed paths. At an all-night outdoor rave, I spotted the local cops looking through second-generation police goggles from the darkened cab of their truck. Crime-spotting, or just girl watching?
