Millimeter scale computers

Researchers in the University of Michigan have created a very small, complete computer. While the news article I found doesn't specify an imaging sensor, a preliminary web-page on the lab's website does talk about an imaging device on such a tiny computer.

Printing of small metal wires

An amazing piece of work from UIUC, where they demonstrate how to print microscale silver wires that allow 3D printing of very tiny electronics. The link is to a video where the technology is demonstrated.

A very high resolution binary sensor

I've been reading this article from EPFL, about a new kind of imaging sensor. Each pixel, or photodetector, measures the light by producing a binary value of either 0 or 1. So, each pixel is, loosely speaking, a photon counter. The advantage of this sensor is that it has the potential to be really fast (high frame rate). Once such binary data is collected, a grayscale image can be obtained from it by applying image processing techniques. This is similar to what the eye does when it sees the spatial dithering in newspaper halftones.

RIP Bryce Bayer

Kodak researcher Bryce Bayer, who created the widely used Bayer filter, has died.

Digital microscope

I randomly came across digital microscopes, which are basically single lens devices that use the high resolution of the sensor (plus a large monitor) to give the impression of magnification. The concept is basically macro photography packaged as a kind of non-optical magnification. You can buy one for about $100. While I was initially skeptical, I learned about some of the challenges faced when building these devices. These include matching the single lens throughput with the sensor resolution and dealing with issues relating to lighting and frame rates. Here is a site with more details including some images of small objects. Some interesting trends include a publication that uses a second lens (an eyepiece) with a cellphone/tablet to enable low-cost lab applications. I also found an application where a company built a stereoscopic digital microscope and hooked it up to a stereoscopic TV. So you basically can see live 3D images of small objects, like an insect.

Antenna lens

The Economist has an interesting article about a new kind of lens made of tiny antennae. When light hits the antennae, the photos are absorbed before being re-emitted (retransmitted?) in a converging direction.

Broken push-broom

Thanks to E for this link, where it looks like an artist bought an expensive push-broom camera and broke its motor. The camera then keeps taking pictures along the same column. Stringing these together gives an interesting image: a static pushbroom projection of a moving world.