Frack That's Cool!

[Xepher]

http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/refocus/

I know it was just on slashdot, so some of you may have seen it already, but... dang that is some awesome tech there. For those too lazy to read the article, just know that each of those pictures/movies is one single shot, taken with a handheld camera. All the refocusing is done after the fact by computer, and is possible because the camera is capturing a complete 4 dimensional light-field, rather than just the 2d slice of it a normal camera does.

Just imagine the implications. Cameras won't have any moving parts, as there will be no need to focus anymore. Security videos will just have to point in a general direction, as any individual bit (like a face or a license plate) will be refocusable later. It actually makes it possible to do the "image enhancement" thing you see in movies, and read a license plate out of a blurry photo. Additionally (though they don't show it in practice in this paper) the technology allows you to make 3D images out of the same single snapshot.

[Databits]

It wouldn't surprise me if they could adapt a form of this technology for helping blind people to see too.

[Xepher]

How so? I mean, other than just using it as a "better" camera for implants and such.

[thefemnazi]

That's really freaking awesome.  While I don't think it could help the blind, I certainly see how it might help the visually impaired.  My mind runs amok with what I could do with this technology in my classroom.

[Databits]

I mean once they can adapt the technology to signals for the mind. Which version of a camera works closest to the human eye? The original focus and shoot, or this type? I suppose that it all comes down to which one works closer to the real thing. Considering they can already wire up a functional robotic arm to a monkeys brain, and have been able to do optical implants to let blind people see in at least some way... I don't think it too far off from really being possible.

My only worry is... the people that would abuse such a thing. I mean, sure, it'd be nice to have cybernetic replacements for people who have lost their leg, arm, eye, hand, foot, etc... But what about those people, and you know they're out there, who would just use succh technology for less than good intentions?

[Xepher]

But that's where the future finally starts to get interesting! :-)

[Lei]

the trend of this topic is starting to sound vaguely familiar

[Databits]

But seriously.... robotic prothstetic arms wired to monkeys brains, functional exoskeletons, the brink of something called a quantum processor thats got the possibility of true AI, launching a single manned space craft off a concord jet into orbit and having it reenter successfully... All this stuff sounds cool, but man oh man is it getting damn close to sci-fi freaky stuff.

[Xepher]

Science fiction has this habit of becoming reality... from 20,000 leagues under the sea using electricity and submarines, dick tracy's video watch, Clarke's invention of geosync satelites, all the way to the early visions of what would later become known as the internet. Just look at the horizon of what's coming in the next couple of decades. We've got the technology to make a space elevator plausible, designs for working nuclear rockets hundreds of times more useful than what we have now, biotech that's giving us robotic limbs and (gasp!) human cloning, quantum computing coming up shortly, and privately run space flight programs. That last one is really fun... you've got an airline company throwing in for space trips (virgin galactic), a hotel chain (budget inns) building inflatable space stations, and a company doing satelite launches off a ship (sealaunch.) If that's not the sci-fi dream, I don't know what is! :-)

[Kestenvarn]

We've got the technology to make a space elevator plausible

Got a link handy for this? Reminds me of one of Heinlein's 'Beanstalks'.

[Xepher]

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/space_elevator_020327-1.html
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast07sep_1.htm
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1116_051116_space.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator
http://www.liftport.com/
http://www.spaceelevator.com/
http://www.elevator2010.org/

And http://www.google.com/search?q=space+elevator gives about 6.2 million pages.

[Kestenvarn]

Thanks.

Yeah, could Google, but used to folks from chat jsut handing out the most relevant link.