5 ms·
Researchers shrink camera to the size of a salt grain
- nynx 5y agoThis gives me _A Deepness in the Sky_ vibes: https://blog.regehr.org/archives/255 https://blog.regehr.org/archives/255
- hackerfromthefu 5y agoI ready something about a tiny wifi chip recently too .. I'm really amazed we're getting close to that level of technology so quickly!
- hericium 5y agoprinceton.edu post[1] on the subject was also discussed[2] recently. [1] https://engineering.princeton.edu/news/2021/11/29/researchers-shrink-camera-size-salt-grain https://engineering.princeton.edu/news/2021/11/29/researcher... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29399828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29399828
- TravelPiglet 5y ago”The new system can produce crisp, full-color images on par with a conventional compound camera lens 500,000 times larger in volume, the researchers reported in a paper published Nov. 29, 2021, in Nature Communications.” Sounds like the university PR-department was smoking something.
- bnegreve 5y agoComparing volumes is a cheap trick to inflate the values. A cube that is 500 000 times as large by volume is only 80 times as large by side length.
- nfw2 5y agoIt seems more correct to me to say the Statue of Liberty is many thousands times bigger than a person than to say it is 50 times bigger than a person
- derkades 5y agoIt's the other way around for me, I'd interpret "bigger" as "taller"
- bnegreve 5y ago> It seems more correct to me to say the Statue of Liberty is many thousands times bigger If by many thousand times bigger, you mean 15 000 times bigger. I have to admit that it is hard to say if that fits my intuition. But it is also kind of the point: it's much easier to compare heights than volumes. edit: remove flawed reasoning while I still can :)
- dragonwriter 5y ago> Well, this is probably not the best example because human bodies are much taller than wider, so their volume wouldn't grow as fast as with a cube if you wanted to scale them. It doesn't matter what the ratio in dimensions are, if you scale up while preserving them, volume goes up as the cube of linear measure.
- bnegreve 5y agoRight, edited.
- charlescarver 5y agoCould this be considered a higher “resolution” fresnel lens?
- suifbwish 5y agoNow we can have a billion cameras everywhere that are virtually invisible. Bravo! At some point privacy invasive technologies will be so available and advanced that clothing and walls will no longer have any point other than to keep out the wind. Luckily advanced deep learning technology will be there to save us by making fact indistinguishable from fiction.
- rnk 5y agoYes. It will happen. I bet low energy radio systems (like helios) will connect them up but that won't be for a long time or in my lifetime. There's a fantastic sci fi book called "Metaplanetary" by Tony Daniel where he invented this and many other fantastic ideas. Imagine that there are billions of little computational nodes around you in the dust ("the grist"). Imagine sentient computer programs, who have human rights. Imagine what people would do who don't believe they are really sentient - yes, they'd torture or kill them. He has some sequels but last time I looked he hadn't published the conclusion book in a long time. He worked in IT in some area. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/116171.Metaplanetary https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/116171.Metaplanetary. I'll agree with the reviews there that the book starts up a little hard to follow, but then it races away.
- rakejake 5y agoMetaplanetary was published in 2001? "Computational dust motes" features in "A Deepness in the sky" by Vernor Vinge which was published in 1999 so Tony Daniel didn't invent the concept. I wouldn't be surprised if the concept is even older tbh.
- rnk 5y agoGood insight, thanks for reminding me of that also great book by Vernor Vinge! Anyway, Metaplanetary is one of my favorites.
- J5892 5y agoIt's inevitable that at some point in the future the only way to achieve true privacy will be to be completely and totally uninteresting.
- jglmn 5y agoKosher or table?
- nofunsir 5y agoPink Himalayan salt lamp
- Bud 5y agoMisleading headline; the graphic in the article makes it quite clear the device is much larger than the "salt grain" that most of us would imagine. And the text of the article mentions a "coarse grain of salt" in a rather slippery attempt to gloss over this. Still very impressive technology, but, a very misleading headline.
- Invictus0 5y agoThe image is of a lens, not a complete camera system. I imagine the system is still a fair bit larger. Moreover, the image you're seeing here has also been deconvolved: it is not the "real" image from the camera.
- chrisco255 5y agoI'm also suspecting the range on it is fairly limited under normal conditions.
- tommiegannert 5y agoThey keep saying "cameras" in the PR article, which is sad, as usual. The research indeed seems to be around only the lens. The introduction [1] suggests that lenses have been lagging sensors in miniaturization. > While sensors with submicron pixels do exist, further miniaturization has been prohibited by the fundamental limitations of conventional optics. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26443-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26443-0