Non-line-of-sight (NLOS) imaging and tracking is an emerging technology that allows the shape or position of objects around corners or behind diffusers to be recovered from transient, time-of-flight measurements. However, existing NLOS approaches require the imaging system to scan a large area on a visible surface, where the indirect light paths of hidden objects are sampled. In many applications, such as robotic vision or autonomous driving, optical access to a large scanning area may not be available, which severely limits the practicality of existing NLOS techniques. Here, we propose a new approach, dubbed keyhole imaging, that captures a sequence of transient measurements along a single optical path, for example, through a keyhole. Assuming that the hidden object of interest moves during the acquisition time, we effectively capture a series of time-resolved projections of the object’s shape from unknown viewpoints. We derive inverse methods based on expectation-maximization to recover the object’s shape and location using these measurements. Then, with the help of long exposure times and retroreflective tape, we demonstrate successful experimental results with a prototype keyhole imaging system.

FILES

• • Technical Paper and Supplement (link)

CITATION

C. Metzler, D. Lindell, G. Wetzstein, Keyhole Imaging: Non-Line-of-Sight Imaging and Tracking of Moving Objects Along a Single Optical Path, IEEE Transactions on Computational Imaging, 2021.

Overview of results

Keyhole imaging. A time-resolved detector and pulsed laser illuminate and image a point visible through a keyhole (left). As a hidden person moves, the detector captures a series of time-resolved measurements of the indirectly scattered light (center). From these measurements, we reconstruct both hidden object shape (e.g., for a hidden mannequin) and the time-resolved trajectory (right).

Experimental setup. Our optical system sends a laser pulse through the keyhole of a closed door. On the other side of the door, the hidden object moves along a translation stage. When third-bounce photons return, they are recorded and time-stamped by a SPAD. Top-right inset: A beam splitter (BS) is used to place the laser and SPAD in a confocal configuration.

Experimental results. First row: Images of the hidden objects. Second row: Reconstructions of the hidden objects using GD when their trajectories are known. Third row: EM reconstructions of the hidden objects when their trajectories are unknown. Fourth row: EM estimates of the trajectories of the hidden objects, each of which follows a different trajectory, where the dot color indicates position over time.

Computational imaging of moving 3D objects through the keyhole of a closed door.

Source: Computational Imaging Keyhole Imaging | IEEE TCI 2021

In a joint project with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the school designed a neuroprosthetic that costs about $500 in components. It’s an inflatable hand made from an elastomer called EcoFlex and looks a bit like Baymax from Big Hero 6.

The device foregoes electric motors in favor of a pneumatic system that inflates and bends its balloon-like digits. The hand can assume various grasps that allow an amputee to subsequently do things like pet a cat, pour a carton of milk or even pick up a cupcake. The device translates how its wearer wants to use it through a software program that “decodes” the EMG signals the brain sends to an injured limb.

The prosthetic weighs about half a pound and can even restore some sense of feeling for its user. It does this with a series of pressure sensors. When the wearer touches or squeezes an object, they send an electric signal to a specific position on their amputated arm. Another advantage of the arm is it doesn’t take long to learn how to use it. After about 15 minutes, two volunteers found they could write with a pen and stack checkers.

“This is not a product yet, but the performance is already similar or superior to existing neuroprosthetics, which we’re excited about,” said Professor Xuanhe Zhao, one of the engineers who worked on the project. “There’s huge potential to make this soft prosthetic very low cost, for low-income families who have suffered from amputation.”

[…]

Source: MIT developed a low-cost prosthetic hand that can help amputees feel again | Engadget

Until recently, there was only one smartphone on the market equipped with an under-screen camera: last year’s ZTE Axon 20 5G. Other players such as Vivo, Oppo and Xiaomi had also been testing this futuristic tech, but given the subpar image quality back then, it’s no wonder that phone makers largely stuck with punch-hole cameras for selfies.

Despite much criticism of its first under-screen camera, ZTE worked what it claims to be an improved version into its new Axon 30 5G, which launched in China last week. Coincidentally, today Oppo unveiled its third-gen under-screen camera which, based on a sample shot it provided, appears to be surprisingly promising — no noticeable haziness nor glare. But that was just one photo, of course, so I’ll obviously reserve my final judgement until I get to play with one. Even so, the AI tricks and display circuitry that made this possible are intriguing.

Oppo

In a nutshell, nothing has changed in terms of how the under-screen camera sees through the screen. Its performance is limited by how much light can travel through the gaps between each OLED pixel. Therefore, AI compensation is still a must. For its latest under-screen camera, Oppo says it trained its own AI engine “using tens of thousands of photos” in order to achieve more accurate corrections on diffraction, white balance and HDR. Hence the surprisingly natural-looking sample shot.

Oppo

Another noteworthy improvement here lies within the display panel’s consistency. The earlier designs chose to lower the pixel density in the area above the camera, in order to let sufficient light into the sensor. This resulted in a noticeable patch above the camera, which would have been a major turn-off when you watched videos or read fine text on that screen.

But now, Oppo — or the display panel maker, which could be Samsung — figured out a way to boost light transmittance by slightly shrinking each pixel’s geometry above the camera. In order words, we get to keep the same 400-ppi pixel density as the rest of the screen, thus creating a more consistent look.

Oppo added that this is further enhanced by a transparent wiring material, as well as a one-to-one pixel-circuit-to-pixel architecture (instead of two-to-one like before) in the screen area above the camera. The latter promises more precise image control and greater sharpness, with the bonus being a 50-percent longer panel lifespan due to better burn-in prevention.

Oppo didn’t say when or if consumers will get to use its next-gen under-screen camera, but given the timing, I wouldn’t be surprised if this turns out to be the same solution on the ZTE Axon 30 5G. In any case, it would be nice if the industry eventually agreed to dump punch-hole cameras in favor of invisible ones.

Source: Oppo’s latest under-screen camera may finally be capable of good photos | Engadget

iFixit co-founder and CEO Kyle Wiens has exposed how companies including Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft manipulate the design of their products and the supply chain to prevent consumers and third-party repairers from accessing necessary tools and parts to repair products such as smartphones and laptops.

ZDNet Recommends

The best old phones to buy

Why last year’s and older models make great deals.

Read More

Speaking during the Productivity Commission’s virtual right to repair public hearing on Monday, Weins took the opportunity to draw on specific examples of how some of the largest tech companies are obstructing consumers from a right to repair.

“We’ve seen manufacturers restrict our ability to buy parts. There’s a German battery manufacturer named Varta that sells batteries to a wide variety of companies. Samsung happens to use these batteries in their Galaxy earbuds … but when we go to Varta and say can we buy that part as a repair part, they’ll say ‘No, our contract with Samsung will not allow us to sell that’. We’re seeing that increasingly,” he said.

“Apple is notorious for doing this with the chips in their computers. There’s a particular charging chip on the MacBook Pro … there is a standard version of the part and then there’s the Apple version of the part that sits very slightly tweaked, but it’s tweaked enough that it’s only required to work in this computer, and that company again is under contractual requirement with Apple.”

He continued, highlighting that a California-based recycler was contracted by Apple to recycle spare parts that were still in new condition.

“California Apple stops providing service after seven years, so this was at seven years and Apple have warehouses full of spare parts, and rather than selling that out in the marketplace — so someone like me who eagerly would’ve bought them — they were paying the recycler to destroy them,” Wiens said.

Weins also pointed to an example involving a Microsoft Surface laptop.

“[iFixit] rated it on our repairability score, we normally rate products from one to 10; the Surface laptop got a zero. It had a glued-in battery … we had to actually cut our way into the product and destroyed it in the process of trying to get inside,” he said.

[…]

The other major point that was covered during the Productivity Commission’s public hearing was whether there is plausibility to introduce a labelling scheme, much like one that exists in France, in Australia.

[…]

Based on his observation, Weins said the adoption of the French index has been “pretty universal” across all five categories. He also pointed out that a recent Samsung survey showed 86% of French citizens say that the index impacts their purchasing behaviour while 80% said they would give up their favourite brand for a more repairable product.

“This is really substantially driving consumer behaviour,” he said.

For consumer group Choice, the possibility of introducing a labelling scheme to improve right to repair in Australia could work.

“We know from experience, particularly with the water and energy labelling scheme, that if you want manufacturers to improve the quality of products, start by rating and ranking them,” Choice campaign and communications director Erin Turner said during the hearing.

[…]

Source: iFixit CEO names and shames tech giants for right to repair obstruction | ZDNet

There’s a limit to what you can learn about cells from 2D pictures, but creating 3D images is a time-intensive process. Now, scientists from UT Southwestern have developed a new “simple and cost-effective” device capable of capturing multi-angle photos that can be retrofitted onto existing lab microscopes. The team say their solution — which involves inserting a unit of two rotating mirrors in front of a microscope’s camera — is 100 times faster than converting images from 2D to 3D.

Currently, this process involves collecting hundreds of photos of a specimen that can be uploaded as an image stack into a graphics software program, which then performs computations in order to provide multiple viewing perspectives. Even with a powerful computer, those two steps can be time-consuming. But, using their optical device, the team found they could bypass that method altogether.

What’s more, they claim their approach is even faster as it requires only one camera exposure instead of the hundreds of camera frames used for entire 3D image stacks. They discovered the technique while de-skewing the images captured by two common light-sheet microscopes. While experimenting with their optical method, they realized that when they used an incorrect amount of de-skew the projected image seemed to rotate.

“This was the aha! moment,” said Reto Fiolka, assistant professor at the Lyda Hill Department of Bioinformatics at UT Southwestern. “We realized that this could be bigger than just an optical de-skewing method; that the system could work for other kinds of microscopes as well.”

Using their modified microscope, the team imaged calcium ions carrying signals between nerve cells in a culture dish and looked at the circulatory system of a zebrafish embryo. They also rapidly imaged cancer cells in motion and a beating zebrafish heart. They also applied the optical unit to additional microscopes, including light-sheet and spinning disk confocal microscopy.

Source: Researchers retrofit microscopes to take 3D images of cells in real-time | Engadget

A British right to repair law comes into force today, requiring manufacturers to make spares available to both consumers and third-party repair companies.

However, despite claiming to cover “televisions and other electronic displays,”‘ the law somehow excludes smartphones and laptops…

 

The European Union introduced a right to repair law back in March, and the UK agreed prior to Brexit that it would introduce its own version.

BBC News reports.

From Thursday, manufacturers will have to make spares available to consumers, with the aim of extending the lifespan of products by up to 10 years, it said […]

The right to repair rules are designed to tackle “built-in obsolescence” where manufacturers deliberately build appliances to break down after a certain period to encourage consumers to buy new ones.

Manufacturers will now be legally obliged to make spare parts available to consumers so appliances can be fixed.

Which? notes that the UK law ensures spares are available for either 7 or 10 years after the discontinuation of a product, but that it only covers four specific consumer product categories (plus some commercial/industrial ones).

Spare parts will have to be available within two years of an appliance going on sale, and up until either seven or 10 years after the product has been discontinued, depending on the part. Some parts will only be available to professional repairers, while others will be available to everyone, so you can fix it yourself.

For now, the right to repair laws only cover:

• Dishwashers
• Washing machines and washer-dryers
• Refrigeration appliances
• Televisions and other electronic displays

They also cover non-consumer electronics, such as light sources, electric motors, refrigerators with a direct sales function (eg fridges in supermarkets, vending machines for cold drinks), power transformers and welding equipment.

However, while you would expect “other electronic displays” to include iPhones, iPads, and most Macs, Which? states that these product categories are excluded.

Cookers, hobs, tumble dryers, microwaves or tech such as laptops or smartphones aren’t covered.

A cynical person might suspect some behind-the-scenes lobbying by Apple and other phone and computer brands…

Source: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers – 9to5Mac

As you dive deeper into the world of electronics, a good oscilloscope quickly is an indispensable tool. However, for many use cases where you’re debugging low voltage, low speed circuits, that expensive oscilloscope is using only a fraction of its capabilities. As a minimalist alternative for these use cases [fhdm-dev] created Scoppy, a combination of firmware for the Raspberry Pi Pico and an Android app to create a functional oscilloscope.

As you would expect, the specifications are rather limited, capturing a maximum of 100 kpts at a speed of 500 kS/s shared between the two channels. Without some additional front end circuitry to protect the Pico, the input voltage is limited to 0-3.3 V. Neither the app nor the firmware is open source, and getting access to the second channel and removing ads requires a ~$3 in-app purchase. Even so, we can still think of plenty of practical uses for a ~$7 oscilloscope. If you do decide to add some front-end circuitry to change to voltage range, you can set them in the app, and switch between them by pulling certain GPIO pins high or low. The app has most of the basic oscilloscope features covered, continuous and single shot capture, adjustable trigger settings and a scalable waveform display.

Simple, cheap oscilloscopes like these have their place, but you start to understand why the “real” ones are so expensive when you see what goes into developing a high performance oscilloscope.

Source: Raspberry Pi Pico Oscilloscope | Hackaday

[…]

The new technique uses a computer to convert attempted handwriting movements from brain activity into on-screen text. As part of their tests, the team worked with a 65-year-old participant (named T5 in the study) who was paralyzed from the neck down due to a spinal cord injury sustained in 2007.

The researchers started by placing two brain chip implants into T5’s motor cortex — the part of the brain that controls movement. They told the participant to imagine he was writing normally with a pen on a piece of ruled paper. The brain chips then sent his neural signal through wires to a computer where an AI algorithm essentially transcribed his “mindwriting” by decoding hand and finger motion.

The end result saw T5 reach a writing speed of about 18 words per minute with 94.1 percent accuracy. Comparatively, an able-bodied adult of a similar age can type about 23 words per minute on a smartphone

[…]

Source: Brain implant lets people with paralysis write using their minds | Engadget

Combined with today’s massive flat panel displays, a nice surround sound system can provide an extremely immersive environment for watching movies or gaming. But a stumbling block many run into is speaker placement. The front speakers generally just go on either side of the TV, but finding a spot for the rear speakers that’s both visually and acoustically pleasing can be tricky.

Which is why [Peter Waldraff] decided to take a rather unconventional approach and hide his rear surround sound speakers in a pair of functioning table lamps. This not only looks better than leaving the speakers out, but raises them up off the floor and into a better listening position. The whole thing looks very sleek thanks to some clever wiring, to the point that you’d never suspect they were anything other than ordinary lamps.

The trick here is the wooden box located at the apex of the three copper pipes that make up the body of the lamp. [Peter] mounted rows of LEDs to the sides of the box that can be controlled with a switch on the bottom, which provides light in the absence of a traditional light bulb. The unmodified speaker goes inside the box, and connects to the audio wires that were run up one of the pipes.

In the base, the speaker and power wires are bundled together so it appears to be one cable. Since running the power and audio wires together like this could potentially have resulted in an audible hum, [Peter] only ran 12 VDC up through the lamp to the LEDs and used an external “wall wart” transformer. For convenience, he also put a USB charging port in the center of the base.

When speakers or surround sound systems pass our way, it’s usually because some hacker has either made  a set from scratch, or has added some new and improved capabilities to their existing gear. This project may be a bit low-tech compared to some that have graced these pages, but it’s undoubtedly a clever and unexpected solution to the problem, and that’s a hack in our book.

 

Source: Lamps Double As Secret Surround Sound Speakers | Hackaday

Stock, the Casio W800-H wristwatch ships with dual time modes, multiple alarms, and a stopwatch – useful features for some. However, more is possible if you just know where to look. [Ian] decided to dive under the hood and enable a countdown timer feature hidden from the factory.

The hack involves popping open the case of the watch and exposing the back of the main PCB. There, a series of jumpers control various features. [Ian]’s theory is that this allows Casio to save on manufacturing costs by sharing one basic PCB between a variety of watches and enabling features via the jumper selection. With a little solder wick, a jumper pad can be disconnected, enabling the hidden countdown feature. Other features, such as the multiple alarms, can be disabled in the same way with other jumpers, suggesting lower-feature models use this same board too.

It’s a useful trick that means [Ian] now always has a countdown timer on his wrist when he needs it. Excuses for over-boiling the eggs will now be much harder to come by, but we’re sure he can deal. Of course, watch hacks don’t have to be electronic – as this custom transparent case for an Apple Watch demonstrates. Video after the break.

 

Source: Modding A Casio W800-H With A Countdown Timer | Hackaday

With Galaxy Upcycling at Home, users can easily turn their old Galaxy devices² into smart home devices like a childcare monitor, a pet care solution and other tools that meet individual lifestyle needs.

Make Any Home a Smart Home

The Galaxy Upcycling at Home program provides enhanced sound and light-control features, by repurposing built-in sensors. Users can transform their old devices through SmartThings Labs, a feature within the SmartThings app.

[…]

For a device to continuously detect sound and light, it needs to be actively operating for long periods of time. For this reason, Samsung equipped the Galaxy Upcycling at Home upgrade with battery optimization solutions to minimize battery usage. Devices will also be able to connect effortlessly to SmartThings, allowing them to interact with countless other IoT devices in the SmartThings ecosystem.

[…]

Source: Samsung Electronics Expands its Galaxy Upcycling Program to Enable Consumers to Repurpose Galaxy Smartphones into Smart Home Devices – Samsung US Newsroom

So it can do sound and light detection stuff for you or be used as a controller for your other IoT equipment

The Logitech Voice M380 wireless mouse looks and acts like a regular mouse but with a special button to initiate voice dictation. Baidu claimed recognition facilitates content creation at two to three times the speed of what one can type.

The device supports dictation in Chinese, English, and Japanese, and can translate content to English, Japanese, Korean, French, Spanish, and Thai. However, as of this month, you can only pick it up in China. There’s no word on when or if it will be available elsewhere.

The Logitech M380 Baidu voice mouse. Click to enlarge

The mouse uses Baidu’s AI open platform Baidu Brain speech technology. The Chinese tech company said of the platform:

As of September 2020, Baidu Brain has developed more than 270 core AI capabilities and created over 310,000 models for developers.

Baidu Brain is made of a security module and four components: a foundation layer (uses open-source Chinese deep learning platform Paddle Paddle, Kunlun AI processors, and databases); the so-called “perception” layer (aggregates the company’s algorithm in voice technology, computer vision and AR/VR); a cognition layer (integrates new information); and a platform layer.

[…]

The mouse comes in three colours, graphite, rose, and off-white, and costs around $30 (£22, €25).

Source: A keyboard? How quaint: Logitech and Baidu link arms to make an AI-enabled, voice-transcribing mouse • The Register

Apparently, if the GPS on your shiny new DJI FPV Drone detects that it’s not in the United States, it will turn down its transmitter power so as not to run afoul of the more restrictive radio limits elsewhere around the globe. So while all the countries that have put boots on the Moon get to enjoy the full 1,412 mW of power the hardware is capable of, the drone’s software limits everyone else to a paltry 25 mW. As you can imagine, that leads to a considerable performance penalty in terms of range.

But not anymore. A web-based tool called B3YOND promises to reinstate the full power of your DJI FPV Drone no matter where you live by tricking it into believing it’s in the USA. Developed by the team at [D3VL], the unlocking tool uses the new Web Serial API to send the appropriate “FCC Mode” command to the drone’s FPV goggles over USB. Everything is automated, so this hack is available to anyone who’s running a recent version of Chrome or Edge and can click a button a few times.

[..]

Source: Web Tool Cranks Up The Power On DJI’s FPV Drone | Hackaday

A pair of good dice is a guilty pleasure for a tabletop RPG gamer. You can never have enough, but I can tell you this: None are going to be as flashy as Pixels. These dice have an ace up their sleeve that the rest of your dice don’t have, because they light up and allow you to play online.

Yes, Pixels are electronic dice. Externally they look like ordinary resin dice, but when you throw them, their numbers light up using programmable LEDs. This alone would be enough for many players to smash the buy button on Kickstarter, where the product has already raised $2 million. But there’s more: The Pixels have a Bluetooth connection.

These days it’s not easy to get together with friends to play. Lockdowns have made things very complicated, but even without a pandemic, RPG players live in different cities, move to other countries, or simply can’t meet for meet several hours at other people’s houses on a regular basis. Online role-playing platforms that allow you to play different games over video calls are popping up, and these dice are compatible with popular services like D&D Beyond, Roll20, and Foundry.

Both the lights and the Bluetooth run on small batteries and one die lasts around five hours on a charge. You can also turn off the LEDs to get in 20,000 rolls before the battery dies. Charging is wireless and uses an inductor hidden under one of its faces. The dice are sold separately or in kits containing D20, D12, D10, D8, D6, and D4 models.

[…]

Source: Pixels Are Bluetooth Dice That Let You Play Online Games

Drag and Drop Farming

Graphically design your farm by dragging and dropping plants into the map. The game-like interface is learned in just a few minutes so you’ll have the whole growing season planned in no time.

Farm from Anywhere

The FarmBot web app can be loaded on any computer, tablet, or smartphone with a modern web browser, giving you the power to manage your garden from anywhere at any time.

Using the manual controls, you can move FarmBot and operate its tools and peripherals in real-time. Scare birds away while at work, take photos of your veggies, turn the lights on for a night time harvest, or simply impress your friends and neighbors with a quick demo.

Source: FarmBot | Open-Source CNC Farming

The sky is a fascinating place, but the real interesting stuff resides far beyond the thin atmosphere. The Universe, the Milky Way and our Solar System is where it’s at. To be able to peer far out through the sky and observe the galaxy and beyond, one needs a telescope.

This Instructable follows my journey as I develop a miniture GOTO telescope. We’ll look through some of the research I perform, glimpse at my design process, observe the assembly & wiring processes, view instuctions for the software configuration and then finally step outside to scope out the cosmos.

The Micro Scope Features.

• Raspberry Pi 4B & HQ Camera.
• 300mm Mirror Lens.
• Canon EOS Lens compatible.
• NEMA 8 Geared Stepper Motors.
• Fully GOTO with tracking.
• GPS.
• WiFi Enabled.
• GT2 Belt Drive.
• Hand Controller.
• 3D Printed Parts.
• Tripod.
• OnStep Telescope Mount GOTO Controller.
• INDI Server.
• KStars/Ekos.

Bill Of Materials & 3D Printable Parts.

The BOM & STLs are available from Thingiverse (4708262). However, I recommend downloading The Micro Scope Build Pack as it contains extras not available from Thingiverse!

[…]

Source: The Micro Scope | a Miniture GOTO Telescope. : 41 Steps (with Pictures) – Instructables

[Sebastian] needed a good set of of shortcuts for OBS and decided to make a macro keyboard to help out. By the time he was finished, [Sebastian] had macro’d all the things and built a beautiful and smart peripheral that anyone with a pulse would likely love to have gracing their desk.

The design started with OBS, but this slick little keyboard turned into a system-wide assistant. It assigns the eight keys dynamically based on the program that has focus, and even updates the icon to show changes like the microphone status.

This is done with a Python script on the PC that monitors the running programs and updates the macro keeb accordingly using a serial protocol that [Sebastian] wrote. Thanks to the flexibility of this design, [Sebastian] can even use it to control the office light over MQTT and make the CO2 monitor send a color-coded warning to the jog wheel when there’s trouble in the air.

This project is wide open with fabulous documentation, and [Sebastian] is eager to see what improvements and alternative enclosure materials people come up with. Be sure to check out the walk-through/build video after the break.

Inspired to make your own, but want to start smaller? There are plenty to admire around here.

 

Source: Dynamic Macro Keyboard Controls All The Things | Hackaday

A new company called Metalenz, which emerges from stealth mode today, is looking to disrupt smartphone cameras with a single, flat lens system that utilizes a technology called optical metasurfaces. A camera built around this new lens tech can produce an image of the same if not better quality as traditional lenses, collect more light for brighter photos, and can even enable new forms of sensing in phones, all while taking up less space.

[…]

“The optics usually in smartphones nowadays consists of between four and seven lens elements,” says Oliver Schindelbeck, innovation manager at the optics manufacturer Zeiss, which is known for its high-quality lenses. “If you have a single lens element, just by physics you will have aberrations like distortion or dispersion in the image.”

More lenses allow manufacturers to compensate for irregularities like chromatic aberration (when colors appear on the fringes of an image) and lens distortion (when straight lines appear curved in a photo). However, stacking multiple lens elements on top of each other requires more vertical space inside the camera module.

[…]

Phone makers like Apple have increased the number of lens elements over time, and while some, like Samsung, are now folding optics to create “periscope” lenses for greater zoom capabilities, companies have generally stuck with the tried-and-true stacked lens element system.

[…]

Instead of using plastic and glass lens elements stacked over an image sensor, Metalenz’s design uses a single lens built on a glass wafer that is between 1×1 to 3×3 millimeter in size. Look very closely under a microscope and you’ll see nanostructures measuring one-thousandth the width of a human hair. Those nanostructures bend light rays in a way that corrects for many of the shortcomings of single-lens camera systems.

[…]

Light passes through these patterned nanostructures, which look like millions of circles with differing diameters at the microscopic level. “Much in the way that a curved lens speeds up and slows down light to bend it, each one of these allows us to do the same thing, so we can bend and shape light just by changing the diameters of these circles,” Devlin says.

[…]

nd the design doesn’t just conserve space. Devlin says a Metalenz camera can deliver more light back to the image sensor, allowing for brighter and sharper images than what you’d get with traditional lens elements.

Another benefit? The company has formed partnerships with two semiconductor leaders (that can currently produce a million Metalenz “chips” a day), meaning the optics are made in the same foundries that manufacture consumer and industrial devices—an important step in simplifying the supply chain.

New Forms of Sensing

Metalenz will go into mass production toward the end of the year. Its first application will be to serve as the lens system of a 3D sensor in a smartphone. (The company did not give the name of the phone maker.)

[…]

Source: Metalenz Wants to Jump-Start Phone Cameras Again With Better Lenses | WIRED

Researchers have made a smart school of robotic fish that swarm and swim just like the real deal, and they offer promising insights into how developers can improve decentralized, autonomous operations for other gizmos like self-driving vehicles and robotic space explorers. Also, they’re just pretty stinking cute.

These seven 3D-printed robots, or Bluebots, can synchronize their movements to swim in a group, or Blueswarm, without any outside control, per research published in Science Robotics this month from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

Equipped with two wide-angle cameras for eyes, each bot navigates their tank by tracking the LEDs lights on their peers. Based on the cues they observe, each robot reacts accordingly using an onboard Raspberry Pi computer and custom algorithm to gauge distance, direction, and heading.

“Each Bluebot implicitly reacts to its neighbors’ positions,” explains Florian Berlinger, a PhD candidate at SEAS and Wyss and first author of the research paper, per a press release. “So, if we want the robots to aggregate, then each Bluebot will calculate the position of each of its neighbors and move towards the center. If we want the robots to disperse, the Bluebots do the opposite. If we want them to swim as a school in a circle, they are programmed to follow lights directly in front of them in a clockwise direction.”

Previous robotic swarms could navigate in two-dimensional spaces, but operating in three-dimensional spaces like air or water has proven tricky. The goal of this research was to create a robofish swarm that could move in sync all on their own without the need for WiFi or GPS and without input from their human handlers.

Source: These 3D-Printed Fish Bots Can Swarm and School