By Olivia Smith, Special to CNN
New York (CNN) - Imagine wallpaper that does work for you and for your electronics. Wallpaper that doesn’t only protect your walls, but also protects your health, equipment and data.
Researchers at France’s Institut Polytechnique de Grenoble have worked with the Centre Technique du Papier to develop Wi-Fi-blocking wallpaper. The product, also known as metapaper, claims to selectively filter, reduce or reflect electromagnetic waves.
Metapaper not only protects against intruders stealing Wi-Fi from buildings, but also ensures that signals inside a building are more secure and stronger, the group says. Benefits include data security for companies or people that need dependable Wi-Fi. The wallpaper can also be used to create quieter spaces for places like hospitals and movie theaters.
The high-tech paper does, however, allow FM radio waves and emergency frequencies to pass through. The paper, which has a snowflake pattern on it but can be covered up by traditional wallpaper, is made from renewable resources and is recyclable, according to the Centre Technique du Papier.
Conductive silver ink and metallic patterns on the wallpaper filter around 99% of waves coming from outside, according to the French newspaper Le Monde, which published a story on the topic earlier this year. However, a room cannot be completely safeguarded by the paper - unless you use it to seal off floor, ceilings and windows, of course.
The metapaper also advertises itself as a healthy alternative, since it claims to reduce a person's exposure to electromagnetic waves. Scientists behind the product point to studies that say the overuse of wireless technology could cause harmful heath effects.
The Finnish firm Ahlstrom acquired the rights to the metapaper. Exact cost estimates have not been released. According to the Centre Technique du Papier, the paper is not yet commercially available because it is still in the industrialization phase.
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"Scientists behind the product point to studies that say the overuse of wireless technology could cause harmful heath effects."
Unless they are referring to carpel tunnel syndrome from typing on wireless keyboards or thumb aches from texting – whoever these scientists are, they certainly do not represent the current consensus among the scientific community as far as I am aware.
Some Facts:
1) Securing your WiFi with a Password can be hacked with tools known throughout the internet and easily obtained.
2) The Metapaper does increase signal since it will travel across it surface this creating a signal extension.
3) Glass is the hardest house/building substance to travel thru. Yes Glass is harder to penetrate then a Brick Wall.
4) Magnetic Wireless Signals DO NOT BOUNCE they either pass thru or they don't.
Rather than buy this expensive wall paper and spend the time putting it up, I think I will just continue to password protect my wifi.
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This is for people that don't know how to secure their wifi. This is just simply retarded.
Wasn't Sheldon's password, "Penny_get_your_own_wireless"
What if the house has more than 1 wireless system. I have my wireless router, a security system and an atomic clock
This is really not a good thing from a health perspective. Not only does it block/reflect waves from the outside it does so on the inside, making it it quite a "cooker." And anything entering from floors and ceilings would just bounce around. Good if you have a room in a single floor home and no cell phone or wifi router inside and want to mildly block neighbors, smart meters or cell towers (a little) but otherwise you need to use other strategies for health protection. Like moving and removing the sources.
not correct. Signals do not "bounce around." The wall coverings are grounded.
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Yes, but is it compatible with Windows? *Slaps random wall*
No, but its "scalable"....
this is straight up Mel Gibson's character in the movie Conspiracy Theory alley.
John McAfee will so buy.
People like us that are not paranoid or super hackers and want WiFi to work all through our house will so not buy.
Think of it more like Protecting your health from all the exterior radio wave signals, that come at you through your walls when you are sleeping for 8 hours every day in the house, like maybe your neighbors routers on both sides of your house. Radio waves can give you headaches and if the signal is strong enough, the headaches can turn into cancer over many years of exposure, about 10-20 years. you've got wi-fi transmitting back and forth, fm signals in the air waves all day long, am signals, vhf from boats around you, Hi powered Police Radios, many radio Waves all day long Bombarding us and Causing Cancer From Over Exposure of 10-20 Years, anything to insulate you from these waves is a Good thing! I can See Cars in the Future With Radio Wave Protection Built into the Skin of the Car.
is that why i have a headache on one side of my head when i lay down every night for sleep?!!
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File this one is the "Solving a problem that doesn't exist" folder. User passwords, people.
This solves a *big* problem for me. Not securing my WiFi, but blocking the dozens of other networks that interfere with my WiFi.
Well Helios Group develop kind of Emulsion paint that significally lowers mobile and other radiatons :
http://www.soncne-barve.si/slo/gradbeni-premazi/notranje-barve-za-posebne-namene/412 (see video)
Superb invention. Now they should really work on making some sorta wallpaper to strengthen and widen a signal, which I'd probably buy asap! : ) Signals are extremely low in my room and not anywhere else.
What always stops me is a password.
Sure, but it's 2012. Who still uses wallpaper?
You still use walls? Ugh, SO 2011...
Won't this prevent the signal from getting to other rooms in the house/apartment?
YES and it also degrades cellular reception. The only practical usage would be in a studio style apartment (which is more common in Europe and Asia) or companies/government wanting to throw this in the anti-hacking pile of passive blocking.
Cell phones operate in a different frequency range and would not be affected. Cordless phones would be. Still, it is so much easier just to 1) choose a unique SSID (network ID), 2) set up WPA2 security with a strong passphrase, 3) reduce the number of IP addresses your network will assign, 4) set the Access Control List to only allow the MAC IDs of your devices. Those simple steps will stop 99.99% of the problem.
hummm, what about the windows? So the signal cant get through the wall and it can still zip out the window... I agree get a password its not hard and I am sure far cheaper
Maybe they'll design some curtains or transparent sticker paper for it : ). But yeah, the signals could probably find their way out through the windows...
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Instead of installing wallpaper I use a password.
Can use that to replace my tin foil hat.??
Yes your new foil apartment will replace your foil hat... but only while you're inside it...
Thanks for discussing your ideas in this arictle. The other point is that whenever a problem arises with a laptop or computer motherboard, individuals should not consider the risk associated with repairing the item themselves because if it is not done properly it can lead to irreparable damage to all the laptop. It is almost always safe just to approach a dealer of a laptop for any repair of the motherboard. They have got technicians who definitely have an know-how in dealing with notebook computer motherboard issues and can carry out the right prognosis and accomplish repairs.
I suspect that (by now many decades old), traditional foil-backed wallpaper would do an even better job, as long as each panel were connected by a conductive ribbon or wire... perhaps behind the baseboard. And it would almost certainly be a lot cheaper.
But of course you'd have to put your TV and WiFi antennas outside.
It's not that simple. Metal (foil like you're talking about) could simply absorb and re-radiate the energy, without forming an effective barrier. Bear in mind antennae are generally made of metal or other electrically conductive material. Obviously radio waves can go through metal.
If you doubt this, simply take your cell phone, surround it in an envelope of aluminum or tin foil (whatever you have handy,) and call it from another number. If you hear it ring, despite being completely wrapped in foil, I'm right, and foil is not an effective shield.
Faraday cages work (as they were explained to me) by absorbing a little of the radio energy that hits them, and by having a physical structure such that before the energy is re-radiated, it interferes with itself, sets up a standing wave inside the conductor that resists the flow of the signal. Basically, it has a high VSWR (pronounced viss-war, rhymes with miss-bar) which IIRC stands for Voltage to Standing Wave Ratio. You set up a standing wave inside the conductor and it cancels the incoming energy. Or something like that. Just plain sheets of foil shouldn't work, there needs to be some kind of structure, a place for the energy to go where it will interfere. Think of a good, functional Faraday cage as being a bit like an electromagnetic shock absorber.
Put it this way, an antenna needs generally to be some binary integer fraction of the wavelength of the energy it's going to be used for to be effective. (Full wave, half wave, quarter wave, etc.) If it isn't, if it's not going to be as effective, because a coherent wave can't develop. This doesn't mean none of the energy penetrates, it just means that the first photons interact with the conductor, set up an internal field that because of the physical geometry and/or electrically conductive characteristics of the material, resist further energy absorption. The idea of making a Faraday cage (or screen room, or RFID resistant wallet, successfully, depends upon constructing a very ineffective antenna, and putting what you want to protect inside it.
It's the reason a microwave oven can have holes in the shield on the door. Visible light is really different from microwave energy only in its wavelength, or you could say its frequency, although those are two sides of the same coin; no pun intended, but they're inversely proportional. A one Hertz (1 Hz, or one cycle per second) electromagnetic signal would have a wavelength of about 300,000 kilometers, or 186,000 miles. By contrast, a 300 megahertz signal has a wavelength of about 1 meter. That means you could also use a half-meter long antenna, and a quarter meter, etc., for transception of a 300 megahertz signal although you do lose some gain not using a full-wavelength antenna, and there is the possibility of the signal being distorted... I'm a little fuzzy on the details.
A side note: the common 100 MHz signal used near the middle of the FM radio spectrum is about 3 meters long. However, you can pick up the signal using a much shorter antenna, but it will generally be a half, quarter, etc., the length of the longest wave it's designed to pick up, and then the rest is done via frequency discrimination done inside the radio receiver, which uses electronic trickery to adjust, virtually, the effective length of the antenna. I think they attach a tank circuit to the base of the antenna, buy I can't remember for sure.
Anyway, the reason you can see into the microwave while it's on and yet NOT get cooked by the 1000 Watts of electromagnetic radiation inside is that the wavelengths of microwave energy are long enough that the first photons get absorbed by the inside of the conductor, then repel other waves crashing into it afterwards. Meanwhile, the grid on the front is an ineffective antenna, so it can't really radiate either. The wavelength of the visible light from the light bulb inside however, is much shorter, and it passes through the holes with no problem.
That barely scratched the surface of what there is to know about radio, and Faraday cages. Isn't science fun?!?
wallpaper, or you could set a password on your wifi device. durrrr
Ummm.... I like all the broke college girls stealing my Wifi. Maybe I like their webcams to be on my subnet. Giggity.
I don't want to harm my body. also with implants too is hazardous
I know cause I get the affects all the time. I just don't want to get anything to harm my brain.
Really? 2.4 GHz of really low powered, non-ionizing radiation effects health? Radio waves do not cause mutations to DNA, Radio waves, as well as all other forms of non-ionizing radiation do not cause cancer... not even close. While WiFi signals vibrate nearly 24 times faster than Z100 FM in NY, the signal only has enough power to go about 100 ft in open air with 40% humidity. Meanwhile, that cellphone must go for miles, that TV broadcast, goes for miles, and Elvis Duran in the Morning, goes for miles. All 3 of those rip through your body all day long. That pesticied filled tomato at the grocery store is more likely to cause disease that your little Netgear or Linksys router.
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I'd have to see the attenuation numbers over a year's time before I'd shell out what will certainly be a pretty penny. Unless the outer walls were completely sealed – no glass, (normal) doors, vents, etc. – it couldn't be more than -10db or so, if that. The real answer is to bump routers up to 15 or 20 Ghz. Not only would you get blistering speeds, but microwaves are much easier to attenuate and in the winter you could sit next to the router to warm up!
If you are sitting next to the router, then why not just go with a wired connection?
I have wired everywhere in my house because WiFi makes me feel sick. I have "powerline" adapters that can be plugged into any outlet in the house. The security system runs the same way. I can plug a camera into any outlet and it goes back to my computer. It's like magic.
15Ghz and up (actually 5Ghz and above) rapidly loose penetration abilities. 15Ghz would not allow those in another room to access the WiFi signal. And frankly – you won't get much faster since the speed limiter is not your WiFi router, or even your broadband speed but the backhaul network design and server performance. Or – having an 8 lane unlimited speed driveway doesn't do you much good if your street is unpaved and a 20mph limit.
Hmmm...I wonder if this stuff can make a hat to replace those unfasionable tin foil ones that everybody's wearing lately.
They've got those, too.
"Scientists behind the product point to studies that say the overuse of wireless technology could cause harmful heath effects."
LULWUT? The only way that causes harmful health effects is to make the user sit on his butt and not exercise. Wifi's effects on health has been studied, and no ill effect has been demonstrated. The author of this piece, as well as the "scientists" behind the wallpaper (since they're making the claim) need to refer to the WHO EMF studies, which equivocates the cancer risk from wifi with that of coffee (no kidding). And baby powder. In other words, simply not there, with only anecdotal evidence given that doesn't separate wifi out from other causes (no one only gets exposed to wifi and not any other carcinogen, source of radiation, etc. at all, not in modern society).
Bottom line: This author forwards a disproven claim. No harm has ever been demonstrated.
"Tin" foil works too, and it's cheaper. It also has the affect of blocking all signals for those that want to live "signal" free. Also make sure to run a ground wire thru it, it also works well for EDPs
Tin foil makes it worse, believe me. Copper scrub pads unrolled work great though.
Uh – if your wireless router is set up without password protections, you deserve to have your WiFi signal stolen. And given that your signal is going to happily leak out through windows, floors and ceilings, I'm really not seeing the point of this product.
...."deserve" to have it stolen? we can all tell your likely tendencies here. ...because a woman walks down the street without padlocking her purse to her hidden vest and without a can of mace, she deserves to have her purse stolen?
That's how they think, unfortunately. If they can hack it, then you deserved it.
By your reasoning if you leave your check book where I can find it you deserve for me to drain your bank account.
It should be pointed out that even with WEP or WPA1 encryption, it is possible to get into someones wifi given a fairly short amount of time.
This wallpaper would be used primarily for security and isolation, meaning a business doesn't have it's wireless signal broadcast outside it's premises and isolation in that in say an apartment complex, the 3 standard 2.4ghz channels are very congested, this wallpaper would effectively isolate the signal to just your unit
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If you are unlucky enough to live in a crowded area where WiFi stealing is the fact of life, then the wallpaper might be for you. I live in the suburd where I leave my door unlock going to the supermarket, and I enjoy sitting in the garden with my coffe reading the news off my Ipad in the morning, chatting with friends in the afternoon, I would never touch these papers which will intefere with my (nice) way of life, thank you very much.
You leave your door unlocked? What's your address?
He doesn't leave his door unlocked, he leaves it " unlock " whatever that means.
Ok...nice to know you are not all that bright leaving your door "unlock." While you're outside, I'll be in there taking everything except your router and modem.
Or, instead of spending thousands of dollars on questionable wallpaper, you could just enable wireless passwords.
Stealing a wifi password is incredibly simple, if you have some knowledge, takes about 30 minutes.....
WPA2 with a strong password is unbreakable by any civilian tech I'm aware of.
Only WPA is easily breakable. The others are secure. Still your broadcast area is a good security point to monitor. No enterprise wants anyone intercepting a signal, regardless of encryption.
There is absolutely no reason why any rational person would leave his/her door unlocked, no matter how safe you think you are. It takes a fraction of a second.
Yes WEP can be eaisly broken. the question is – why would anybody with the skills to do that (and they are not that common) show up to steal broadband from just any house in any suburban housing plan? Geeks are the same the world over, stuck in geek land. In practical senses I would only worry about somebody breaking my WEP code if I lived in a building of geeks who want to bust those just for the fun. Broadband is free in so many places . . . be realistic.
Yes, there are places like this, and by definition people like Marty do not live there – that's what makes them nice places to be
.
A couple more thoughts: the amount of silver ink required to wallpaper all of the outer walls of your house will make this paper pretty expensive, and it will probably lose most of its effectiveness within a month or so, as the silver ink oxidizes. Silver oxide is not likely to be nearly as conductive as metallic silver.
Live underground.
Faraday Cage, anyone?
No....I don't remember Daniel being put in a cage in LOST.
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when they come up with an affordable paper(or paint) that is environmentally safe and and shields against the ever increasing levels of non-ionizing radiation we're being exposed to then i might be interested, until then this is gimmick material, a pretty waste of money
There is a U.S. company that does this already in paint form, out of Virginia. Unishield.com
I suppose this takes the place of the tinfoil hates.
See, Alabama hasn't changed. Still a lot of hates....We use hat in the rest of country (well, with the exception of GA maybe...). aHAHAHA...kidding...
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What about cell phones. I find mobile homes with metal outer walls block cell reception. This paper might do the same.
Let me see if I understand the logic here. I install a wireless router so that I can use my computer anywhere in and around my house (like on my patio). Then I put this wallpaper up in my computer room to block the signal, thus preventing anyone, including myself, from using the signal in and around my house.
It's suppose to go on exterior walls to prevent the stealing of wi-fi.
There are these things called passwords...
Once again Six Degrees, stealing a wifi password is simple, then I can access your files, basically see anything you do through your network....
Interesting concept and product. Many nations have been working on this. The last one I read, a few months back, the paper blocked WIFI and mobile phone frequencies. But, it isn't commercially viable. Governments and large businesses use multi-frequency jumping, so their signal is protected, and individual homes can use encryption and passwords.
Bring on that wallpaper! I made to age 66 without seatbelts, bicycle helmets, cell phones, texting, mp3 player, wi-fi, etc, etc, etc.
You must be a real blast at parties.
I made it to age 73 without that crap!
I made it to 65 having used many forms of technology since I was 13, and made a career out of it. What a blast it's been.
It'll protect against NAS (nerve attenuation Syndrome). You know, the Black Shakes. Pharmacom has the cure.
The latest version of the tinfoil hat. . .
Am I missing something? Couldn't you just encrypt your wi fi signal and require passwords?
Why, yes. Yes you could.
You can also monitor your wireless router to see if anyone you don't know is using it.
Can it block cell phones and texting in movie theaters? Now that would be useful in controlling the morons there.
NOT a safe thing to do... especially in light of the recent shootings in the Aurora, Colorado. I bet those folks sure are glad they could dial 911 from inside the theatre.
911 was no help. this lunatic was finished by the time police arrived. now if someone had a gun and could get a head shot, that might have helped. i think this wallpaper would be great in theaters, if someone needs to call 911 they can go to the lobby.
There are an awful lot of cars out there that could use a good painting with this!
Bestbuy: would you like extended geeks quad warrenty on your wifi blocker wall paper?
Customer: yes
Bestbuy: would you also like wifi blocker curtains and blinds to go with your wall paper?
Customer: sure, why not
Bestbuy: would you like our agents to come over and set up your wifi blocker wall paper, curtains, and blinds?
Customer: yes!
And by "American" you mean "French" as it was developed in France and the rights were sold to a Finnish firm.
What can you say about some one who thinks the word is "walla"?
What would you say about the person that really cares ?
You BIG DUMMY. What do you think about that ?
That's a smart answer to a tricky qustieon
In movie theaters? Yes please!
But it will probably also block Cell phone signals. WiFi is generally at around 2.4 GHz, and cell phones operate around 900 MHz and 1.9 GHz (depending upon the technology). I think if you want to use your cell phone at home, you would have some problems
Who still uses wallpaper?
Wallpaper could be used to create a unique focal point in any room. It's a good thing.
I say wrap our fighter jets with that stuff and WALLA. A good cost saving strategy. Our entire fleet radar proof. Air carriers as well. Another smart American developed something great.
Troop, that would not work. This wallpaper reflects the signals, it does not absorb them. As a former Navy Electronic Warfare technician, wrapping a fighter in this stuff would only enhance its radar signature, not hide it, as it allows signals to be bounced off of it with greater ease.
But like Martha states, it can turn your carrier into a unique focal point. Gone is the battleship grey of carriers. Say hello to the carrier in...snowflake patten? Would scare the crap out of Somali pirates who've never seen a snowflake before.
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I believe the word you're looking for is voilà. not walla. And it was developed in France not the U.S. Stupid Americans!
There are uneducated and under educated people in every country throughout the world. Making a blanket statement about an entire country sounds pretty unintelligent to me. I agree that Troop should probably read the articles a little closer and learn how to spell the word voilà.
"Walla" is pretty much Australian (as evidenced by the Outback Steakhouse Menu), as opposed to "Wassa" which is a group of people from the Ivory Coast, or "Wasilla" a town in Alaska whose image has been done irreperable damage by the Palins.
I thought this was pretty funny. I also assumed Troop was joking. People need to relax a bit.