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ICYMI: Photos of wild animals that are far superior to yours
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: The BEASTCAM is a camera rig to scan live animals for fast 3D models to share with educators. Meanwhile Cambridge Consultants is marketing the Ekano mobile surgical suitcase for surgeons to use in developing countries. The very important Whisk Wiper is available online and the rotary dialing smartphone is here. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Pelican Imaging's prototype array camera could make your pictures better, phones thinner (video)
If you want to look for life on another planet you don't build one radio telescope that's miles wide, you build a bunch of smaller ones and create an array out of them. As it turns out that basic idea works for capturing visible wavelengths as well. It's called a plenoptic camera, using an array of very small lenses that, when combined, can create an image as good as a larger one. Pelican Imaging is largely interested in the slim factor this kind of system could offer, potentially allowing for thinner phones, but this could also open the door to some interesting effects. Check out the video after the break for an example of the dynamic aperture control this sort of setup can allow, where you can change the focal plane of an image after it was taken. Given the small size of the array here you probably couldn't do anything too crazy, like take a picture through a tree, but the days of poorly focused cameraphone shots might finally be at an end -- whenever this actually comes to market.
Self-reconfigurable Matrix-style camera array soon to be self-aware
We're pretty sure this camera setup won't be putting the Wachowski Brothers out of a job any time soon, but some folks at Carnegie Mellon slapped this Matrix-style rig together for a "mere" $22,000. The cameras are mounted on linear guides, making them self-reconfigurable, and each can shoot 640 x 480 video at 30 fps. Their purported aims are "Image-based rendering," creating 3D objects with little scene geometry info, but we're sure they're doing plenty of bullet time scenarios in their free time. Coming to a YouTube near you: Matrix Restitutions.[Via MAKE]
