Definitely not new. You can easily do this with off the shelf FLIR handheld devices. Used to work in a data centre and our electrician would use the FLIR to inspect electrical panels for faulty breakers. We were chatting about the FLIR and she was like watch this, put your hand on the table then remove it, you could point the FLIR at the table 10-20 seconds later and still see your hand imprint. Was very cool. I think it cost ~$10k or something though.
