MIT researchers have come up with a camera that uses light-sensitive fibers in place of a lens. When woven together, the fibers form a fabric that can “measure light intensity distribution at different wavelengths across a large area.” The information that the fabric gathers is then fed into a computer for processing. Like many awesome technological breakthroughs, all of this is still the stuff of dreams – or in the case of celebrities, nightmares – but if everything goes as planned, in the future we will have wearable cameras that can give 360 degrees of vision to the wearer.
As proof of concept, an image of a smiley face was successfully captured by the fibers and then projected onto a computer screen. The researchers, led by Associate Professor Yoel Fink of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE), are optimistic that the fabric’s image-capturing capabilities can be improved – crisper, with the addition of “optoelectronic layers.” Future stalkers and paparazzi will have a lot of fun with this.