Image Fulgurator Could Slip Ad Messages or Mascots into Picturesque Statues, Portraits, Landscapes

I knew this webmaster who said she was out in the forest with her digicam and a big lens, taking shots of the landscape, when suddenly she realized there was something in the picture that didn't appear to be there in real life.

"It was a UFO," she insisted, "just floating in the sky, perfectly still. And I could only see it in the photos I took."

I called bullshit at the time. But since then, Julius von Bismarck -- a seriously Che Guevara-looking dude -- invented the Image Fulgurator. It senses when a flash goes off, then projects an image onto the pictures people took.

See it in action. Meanwhile, the Guerrilla Marketing blog poses the inevitable question: "Could such a device be used for guerrilla marketing tactics?"

Think of the potential! I'd be totally spooked if I took a shot of Niagara Falls and saw Ronald McDonald staring back at me with his spooky clown grin.

Someone on Boing Boing is less optimistic: "If this is legit, I predict it will be used almost exclusively to project the text 'NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY' onto snapshots of paintings, performances, and the like."