MIT researchers weave "flexible camera" out of fiber web
By Donald Melanson 
posted Jul 10th 2009 1:03PM
posted Jul 10th 2009 1:03PM
We've seen liquid camera lenses and cameras shaped like an eye, but a group of researchers from MIT's Department of Materials Science and Engineering are now taking things in yet another shape-shifting direction with a so-called "flexible camera" that uses a special fiber web instead of traditional lenses. Those fibers are each less than one millimeter in diameter, and are comprised of eight nested layers of light-detecting materials, which the researchers are able to form using an extrusion process like that used to make optical fiber for telecommunication applications. Once woven into a fabric, the researchers say the "camera" could be anything from a foldable telescope to a soldier's uniform that gives them greater situational awareness. Of course, they aren't saying when that might happen, although they have apparently already been able to use the fiber web to take "a rudimentary picture of a smiley face."
Wow giz posted this like a month ago
Upskirts will never be the same.
And correct, this is like an month old.
Yeah, all I need is to have one of these on my shoe. :p
Side question: How do you power these things?
If clothing manufacturers would build these into the skirts, it would make things easier...
But how would you market those skirts towards women... hmmm~
You do it in Japan, they had a fad of women wearing skirts that made it look like they were walking around in their underwear. Find an angle and I'm sure they will buy it.
yeah wasnt this already posted a few days ago?
dude how do i change my password so i can actually remember it?
click on your name in a previous post.
nice!
You can get an avatar then if you so desire.
I remember this...
Some pig.
hmm....invisiblility cloak or clothes....
You could make a picture of your body by looking inside then somehow project it on the outside, that way you could streak while still clothed so you could be naked in cold climates like the artic.
Hurdles: your junk would look squashed. Advantages, a color filter could give you a tan.
old
Whats with the SEM abuse? These photos really could have been taken on an optical microscope.
Pictures above don't look like SEM, it has too shallow a depth of field it looks to me, I thought SEM didn't do that.
Although the departments that handle the equipment seem to sometimes have artistic post processing done.
Anyway if it's available why not use it?
Isn't this what's used in video games such as Splinter Cell and other Tom Clancy games?
finally that simpsons episode with the chick judge who has a fiber optical camera implanted in homer and bart's handcuffs that handcuff them together will be technically accurate.
How come science papers are so expensive? I mean to download a single pdf of an article they ask $34, it's not even printed, and the concept of science is to share not to sit on it and ask $34 a pop for an electronic document.
ALMOST as daft as google video asking money for stupid jabber of TV political journalist from the freaking past, almost because it's very hard to beat the insanity of that one.
Regardless of how old this is, i find it fascinating.
Dude,
if you can make cameras from these fibers that combined with tiny leds) means you can image the stomach, esophagus, and even blood vessels..
K