"Seeing" around corners: advanced laser system

Superman has to be hating himself about now. Researchers and engineers have already mimicked his flight, laser vision, and super strength, now they’re close to getting his x-ray vision too. A team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Rice University, and the University of Wisconsin have created a system that can “see” around corners. Otkrist Gupta, an MIT graduate student and researcher describes the system which is similar to echolocation. "Imagine photons as particles bouncing right off the walls and down a corridor and around a corner—the ones that hit an object are reflected back. When this happens, we can use the data about the time they take to move around and bounce back to get information about geometry." The system struggles with more complex objects and is likely at least five to 10 years from commercial availability. Hey, at least Superman isn’t out of a job yet.