Printed optics

Karl Willis from CMU/Autodesk has shown amazing printed optics from the work done at Disney Research. So far there hasn't been much computer vision work with these optics, but such applications can't be too far away.

Underwater microscopes and more IoT news

UCSD got a bunch of money to build an underwater microscope, combining ideas from microscopy, optics, computer vision and underwater robotics. In other news ARM considers designing a new processor for IoT.

EEtimes article says it all about many small sensors

A good article about a new blog that will look at the whole IoT thing from a marketing perspective. A good read (and a good blog to follow) for those of us who want to get tiny, low power sensors into the real world.

Insect eyes

Another amazing piece of curved artificial eyes from John Roger's lab at UIUC.

The internet of lights

This NYT article has a great quote: "whenever there is lighting, there is data being created." While folks who work with projector-camera systems have known the usefulness of coupled control of illumination and imaging, a similar philosophy has begun to seep into manufacturers of general lighting fixtures. The first wave was the (sort of) obvious class of smart bulbs that allow you to control their color and intensity with your smartphone. Now, one of the new goals is to convert all outdoor lighting into low-level security sensors. Another direction is to control illumination in the workplace over the course of the day, to improve productivity. Lots of low-power, embedded, camera or photodetector-based problems exist in this space.

Chiplets

Xerox PARC is working on a type of ink called "chiplets" which they hope will allow 3D printing of flexible electronics. 

Beautiful sculptures of deadly, tiny creatures

Perhaps the most interesting piece of nanotechnology is the biological virus. I recently learned that the known viruses present on Earth outnumber all other species put together. This is their planet and we just happen to live here. The website of Studio 360 has some examples of lovely glass sculptures of some famous viruses. The transparent nature of glass and the strange virus structure combine to give a stunning effect.