20 most recent innovations in optics

Automatic Vision-Correcting Displays

Mon, 18 Aug 2014 00:00:00 Z

MIT’s research department working with the University of California at Berkeley has created digital display tech that can automatically compensate for vision problems, eliminating the need for glasses or contacts for specific uses like reading or viewing GPS navigation devices for far-sighted folks, among other potential uses.

The new display tech is actually a variation on glasses-free 3D, which works not by displaying different images to both the left and right eyes, but by sending slightly different images to different parts of each pupil, simulating an image that appears right where their sweet spot is in terms of focal distance. While the tech does mean a slight reduction in image resolution, it isn’t all that dramatic, though the use of a screen with pinholes designed to block light from hitting specific pats of the pupil mean that brightness is drastically reduced. Still, a viable solution to this problem already exists and could be implemented in commercial versions.

As for how this tech might be used, the MIT team that developed it images solutions for age-related vision loss, which generally takes the form of farsightedness – that means that if you can see far but can’t read up close, you could use a GPS unit with this kind of screen to avoid having to wear bifocals or varifocals, which come with their own downsides in terms of their effect on the wearer.

Reversible Sunglasses

Mon, 18 Aug 2014 00:00:00 Z

Norwegian eyewear company KAIBOSH have collaborated with clothing brand HAiK on a series of limited edition reversible sunglasses. The ‘two-way’ sunglasses can be used both ways by simply flipping the temples around.

Each frame is made with an acetate front, are designed with a special hinge, available in round or rectangular shaped shades and five different color ways. The lenses are hand crafted using high quality tri-acetate polarised CR39 lenses with anti-scratch coating and feature UVA/B protection.

Sketch In 3D Using Augmented Reality

Fri, 18 Apr 2014 00:00:00 Z

A group of Royal College of Art students–Guillaume Couche, Daniela Paredes Fuentes, Pierre Paslier, and Oluwaseyi Sosanya–has developed a tool called GravitySketch that starts tracing an outline of how these systems could work as creative tools.

Their high-tech sketchpad looks a bit like a prop from Tron, with its etched grid of transparent plastic and sternly rectilinear user interface panel, but the goal is to make augmented reality feel as natural and organic as sketching in a notebook. Artists hold the acrylic drawing tablet like its analog counterpart and sketch with a custom stylus. Radio frequency sensors record the movements and coordinates on the pad and send them to an Arduino hidden in the black box on its edge. No lines are actually drawn on the pad, but the artist sees them float in air through a pair of augmented reality glasses wirelessly connected to the Arduino.

The real trick of GravitySketch is that, rather than requiring artists to master tricks like perspective or foreshortening to suggest depth and physicality, they can simply rotate the tablet and draw lines that connect to their previous marks, creating a sense of form in the process. The drawings hang in space, can be approached from any angle, and can be rotated like physical objects.

A solo sketch can quickly become a jam session if several people surround the drawing, allowing people to collaborate in real time with none of the loss that comes from sharing ideas asynchronously and in traditional formats.

Clever Newspaper Ad That Hides A 3D Kitchen

Wed, 09 Apr 2014 00:00:00 Z

When reading newspapers, we tend to flip through the ads very quickly—to grab the attention of the reader, Colombia-based creative director Felipe Salazar has created a clever ad for Corona Kitchen that plays tricks on the eye.

Looking like a typical classified ads page of the newspaper, this ad manipulates the newsprint columns to create an optical illusion that make it look as though a miniature kitchen has been embedded right into the newspaper.

Using nothing but rows of text, he has managed to render the clear outlines of a three-dimensional kitchen and its basic elements, including a gas hob and an oven.

Night-Vision Contact Lenses

Mon, 31 Mar 2014 00:00:00 Z

Those night-vision devices used by hunters and soldiers may soon get a lot smaller -- small enough, in fact, to be built right in to contact lenses.

That's the word from University of Michigan researchers, who say they've created the first-ever full-spectrum infrared light detector that works at room temperature. Conventional night-vision devices require bulky built-in cooling units to work properly.

Night-vision technology makes it possible to see light that is imperceptible to our eyes, and heat that radiates from the bodies of people and animals in the dark.

"We can make the entire design super-thin," Dr. Zhaohui Zhong, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the university, said in a written statement. "It can be stacked on a contact lens or integrated with a cell phone."

The key to the new technology is a lightweight and super-strong form of carbon known as graphene. Ordinarily, graphene absorbs only about 2.3 percent of light that hits it -- not enough to generate a usable infrared signal. But by combining two layers of graphene with an insulator, the researchers were able to boost the signal dramatically. Sensors made of sandwiched graphene can detect the full infrared spectrum, in addition to visible and ultraviolet light.

Zhong and his team have yet to integrate their technology into contact lenses, but he says the technological pathway to such devices is clear.

"If we integrate it with a contact lens or other wearable electronics, it expands your vision," Zhong said. "It provides you another way of interacting with your environment."

And wearable night-vision contacts are just one possible application of the new technology. Infrared devices are also used to identify gas leaks, help doctors find blood vessels and even allow art historians to see sketches under layers of paint.

“Our work pioneered a new way to detect light,” Zhong said in a statement. “We envision that people will be able to adopt this same mechanism in other material and device platforms.”

X-Ray Glasses That Can See Through Your Skin

Thu, 21 Nov 2013 00:00:00 Z

Evena Medical created in partnership with Epson an Eyes-On Glasses System which enables medical professionals to essentially peer underneath a patient’s skin in order to more easily locate veins for IV treatments. The product is “one of the first healthcare applications of smart glasses commercially available on a global scale.”

While it may sound a bit like the X-ray specs sold in the back of comic books, Evena’s Eyes-On system is a version of a proven vascular imaging technology. Eyes-On ports the tech into a head-mounted display, to better help nurses and other medical workers do vein detection. Rather than having to cart a system around, the new device is hands-free and “projects overlays of digital content onto the real-world in the center of the wearer’s field of view … enabling a seamless blend of the physical and digital worlds,” the company said in a statement.

What’s more, the device allows for digital storage, enabling nurses to document and share a patient’s vein patency throughout his or her hospital stay.

Dog action cam mount

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:00:00 Z

Thanks to Sony, YouTube is soon to be flooded with countless first-person videos of dog butts and fire hydrants as the company is releasing a dog-mount for its Action Cam, starting in Japan. Specifically designed for dogs larger than 15 kilograms, the €42 mount is designed to be worn like a traditional harness providing exciting footage of your dog during its daily hour of playtime, and its other 23 hours of sleeping.

'Robotic Cameraman' films your adventurers via GPS track

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:00:00 Z

The SoloShot, is a device that holds a camera on a tripod and points it automatically at the person (or object) that is wearing a small GPS transmitter. If you go alone to ski, surf, bike, or make football moves in a field, this is a product for you. It sounds odd, we know. Watch the video below if you’re intrigued, as it does a good job putting the device in context.

The device has a single purpose: To pan or track with the GPS signal transmitted from the armband unit. It cannot tilt or zoom a camera. Also, the armband device does not give any control to start, pause, or stop — you’re rolling all the time until you get back to the SoloShot device.

Integrated optics and electronics on a single chip

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:00:00 Z

IBM researchers have managed to shrink optical components to fit alongside their electrical counterparts on a single chip. This advance in the realm of “silicon nanophotonics” paves the road to much higher-performance servers, data centers and supercomputers in the years to come.

The performance of microprocessors increases exponentially as years go by and yet, when it comes to putting together tens of thousands of them to create a supercomputer or a big data center, this doesn't automatically translate into proportionally higher speeds. A system of this magnitude can only move as fast as the slowest of its components and, as it turns out, the main bottleneck here is the speed at which data can be sent across the different processors. The existing copper interconnects are limited in bandwidth and are expensive relative to their performance, costing several dollars per Gbit/s.

The development is expected to bring costs down considerably,to less than a cent per Gbit/s. IBM has already demonstrated optical transceivers exceeding 25 Gbit/s per channel, and showed that multiplexers embedded in the chip can feed parallel streams of optical data into a single fiber to reach much higher speeds.

IllumiRoom takes video games beyond the TV

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 00:00:00 Z

The way we play video games is forever evolving. Nintendo brought motion control to the masses with the Wii, while the rise of smartphones and tablets has meant the number of casual games (and casual gamers) has grown exponentially over the past few years. What is next on the agenda? The signs all point towards a more immersive experience being the main aim and Microsoft Research is keen to lead the way with IllumiRoom.

IllumiRoom brings the visuals of video games out beyond the boundaries of the television. Using a Kinect for Windows camera and a projector, IllumiRoom is able to bring certain elements of individual games into your living room. The camera scans your personal space to capture the dimensions and geometry involved, which the projector then utilizes for displaying images. These range from a direct extension of the playing area, to the appearance of particular effects such as snowflakes or sparks.

IllumiRoom isn't yet an actual product, but as a proof-of-concept it's clearly related to the "immersive display experience" patent Microsoft applied for in 2011. The patent describes a system which brings a "peripheral image" from the television screen into the room occupied by the gamer. This system looks to be competing with the new breed of virtual reality systems such as the Oculus Rift and Sensics SmartGoggles gaming headsets.

Non-invasive glucose monitor for people with diabetes

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 00:00:00 Z

C8 MediSensors has created a system that uses Raman spectroscopy to non-invasively detect glucose in blood by shining light through the skin and detecting changes in the returning spectrum.

Once the sensor is attached to the skin it sends out regular readings wirelessly over Bluetooth to a smartphone, allowing for tight glycemic control and near instant alerts when glucose levels go outside preset parameters. It’s currently compatible with Android phones and an iOS app is expected to be available next year.

Nissan developed a self-cleaning rear-facing camera

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 00:00:00 Z

Nowadays cars are being fitted with cameras at the back which helps when reversing into a parking spot so you won’t ding your bumper. However it seems that in the 2013 Nissan Altima, the rear camera could do more than just that. For example the camera can act as a lane departure warning system as it will be able to read between the painted lane markers on the road. When the camera detects that the vehicle has gone out of the line and will audibly alert the driver. It will also be able to detect vehicle behind the Altima and could also notify drivers audibly when they detect that a vehicle might have gotten too close.

Best of all, it seems that while the rest of your car might need a wash every now and then, this camera will be able to take care of itself. A drop of windshield cleaning fluid will be dripped onto the camera’s lens every now and then, with an air compressor blowing a puff of air on it to dry it, keeping the camera clean and preventing it from reporting false positives. We’re not sure if it will come included with the vehicle or it will be part of a package, but it sounds like a pretty good driver’s aid system.

EnChroma glasses for color-blindness

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 00:00:00 Z

EnChroma's Cx sunglasses are claimed to allow people with red-green color blindness to see red and green as distinct colors

While many people may think that being color blind means seeing everything in black-and-white, such a condition is in fact quite rare. Instead, the majority of people who are classified as color blind are capable of color vision, but they have difficulty distinguishing red and green as distinct colors. EnChroma’s Cx sunglasses are designed to help in these cases, by selectively reducing the transmission of given wavelengths of light, thus allowing red and green to stand out.

The key to the sunglasses’ performance is a proprietary coating on the lenses. Said to be harder and more scratch-resistant than glass, it can be tweaked in production to filter certain wavelengths that cause “color confusion.” The result is an improved signal-to-noise ratio in the perception of colors, in which red and green don’t just appear as variations of yellowy-brown – as an example.

Camalapse, an Inexpensive time-lapse video base

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 00:00:00 Z

People really seem to like time-lapse video devices. They slowly pan or tilt the user’s video camera, as that camera shoots at a very slow frame rate. The result is time-lapse video, in which the camera moves as opposed to sitting locked off. The footage can actually look quite impressive.

The Camalapse offers a single speed of six degrees per minute. This is meted out into four time/rotation presets which the user can choose between, ranging from a 90-degree pan taking 15 minutes in real time, to 360 degrees in one hour. It is entirely mechanically-operated, so no batteries are required.

The camera attaches to the device via a simple threaded stud on top – depending on the specific camera or smartphone, a tripod mounting adapter may be required. The Camalapse also has a threaded hole in the bottom, so it can itself be mounted on a tripod. It only pans from right to left, although clever types might experiment with turning it upside-down or sideways. Be aware, however, that it’s intended for small, light cameras and smartphones only.

Tough, super-stretchy hydrogel

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 00:00:00 Z

Scientists at Harvard University have created a hydrogel that’s tough, biocompatible, self-healing, and can be repeatedly stretched to 21 times its regular length without breaking. Being a hydrogel, it’s composed mostly of water, although it also contains calcium ions, and a mix of two common polymers. While each of those polymers are fairly weak on their own, the results are truly impressive when they’re combined.

In fact, the new hydrogel's creator, a materials engineer named Zhigang Suo, claims the material can't be torn apart using just your hands. In reality tearing does occur at the molecular level, but the material's unique structure manages to keep it intact, facilitating slick demonstrations like the one in the image. There are more practical applications for the material, however, like making virtually indestructible contact lenses, extra durable replacement cartilage for human joints, or even a strong support system for growing artificial organs.

Paper-thin, distortion free, lens

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:00:00 Z

Researchers at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have been able to come up with something which may revolutionize the world of cameras. These researchers have created a new kind of camera lens which is virtually as thin as a paper.

To be specific, it measures a mere 60 nanometers in thickness and makes use of a gold-plated silicon wafer. Parts of the gold plate are chipped away to leave behind several V-shaped structures, evenly distributed along the surface in near rows. It is then by tweaking the size, angle and orientation of these V-shaped structures that the lens is able to capture wide-angle distortion-free images.

A-frame glasses, adjustable to fit any face

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 00:00:00 Z

For some, the task of finding a pair of glasses or sunglasses is an epic task. Not only do you have to find a pair that compliments the shape of your face, but they also have to fit your face. With that in mind, designer Ron Arad designed the A-Frame line of glasses that can expand and contract to sit comfortably on any face address the latter issue.

The secret behind these specs are the wire-frame body, which rely on sprung hinges to deliver the magic. The point above the nose is not just to provide a unique look, but also houses the hinge mechanism that allows the lenses to slide in and out when you bend the frames up or down. the hinges on each side of the face also contain the same technology, and when removed from the face, automatically collapse back into their folded position.

bleaching jeans with lasers

Fri, 11 May 2012 00:00:00 Z

The Jeans industry is one of the largest industries in the clothing and fashion world, producing over 50 billion dollars a year.

Currently, jeans that look bleached, partially or completely, are considered more fashionable than the classic blue jeans. Many methods exist to bleach jeans, the most modern and sophisticated method is laser engraving where a focused laser beam is used to photo bleach the jeans. Since laser engraving uses a highly focused beam it enables manufactures to create complex patterns, white on blue images (or other jeans colors), and personal signatures on a pair of jeans which make them a more personalized and desired product.

In a typical laser engraving system a CO2 laser beam propagates through a computer controlled galvanometer scanner, which directs the beam through an F-theta focusing lens to the fabric in the direction needed to create the specified pattern. The software controls the galvanometer to draw a pattern and the galvanometer steers the beam accordingly. In this setup the laser system is required to deliver just enough power to bleach the dye but not to damage the fabric. The laser beam is also required to be stable and narrow to ensure the pattern on the jeans is produced as precisely as expected.

Laser measurement devices can be used to monitor system operation of these lasers to ensure the output power is the necessary level to achieve the effect. For example, recently a jeans manufacturer had a problem: he was using two laser machines to produce patterns on both sides of a pair of jeans simultaneously. Both lasers were designed to deliver the same power in order to obtain identical symmetric patterns on both sides of the pants. However, occasionally one of the laser powers drifted and delivered a different power. This resulted in defected pairs of jeans with different looking patterns on both sides. The manufacturer solved this problem by using an Ophir OEM application; a laser power sensor was installed in each of the laser systems between the laser and the galvanometer, reflecting mirrors periodically reflect both beams into the sensors to sample the output power of both lasers. This solution enabled the controller to monitor and match his lasers, ensuring both output powers are equal.

Who would have imagined at 1960, when the first laser was made, that lasers would be incorporated into the good old jeans industry?

Glass beads to mimic butterfly wings

Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:00 Z

Butterfly wing material is somewhat like spider silk, in that they’re both animal-produced substances which scientists are very interested in copying. In the case of butterfly wings, it’s their ability to brilliantly reflect light in a variety of iridescent colors that could prove particularly useful to humans. Researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) are reporting success in replicating the reflective properties of the insects’ wings, using tiny glass beads.

Prof. Shin Jung Hoon led the team, which set out to copy the wings of the morpho butterfly. According to the researchers, the secret to the morpho’s striking wings is that their reflective microstructure is at once ordered and chaotic. Analyzed at the 100-nanometer level, the structure is in disarray. Zoom out to the 1-micrometer level, however, and it becomes uniform.

The scientists replicated this arrangement by first randomly aligning glass beads of various sizes, although all of them measured approximately a few hundred nanometers across. That took care of the chaotic structure. Then, they used a semiconductor deposition process to deposit a thin film over top of the beads. This made the structure appear ordered when viewed as a whole. They sealed the resulting film in thin clear plastic, to protect it and give it more structure.

The biomimetic film can be made to reflect in a variety of colors

The finished product was said to produce a better quality and brightness of reflected light than the butterfly wings themselves. Additionally, the color of the film changes less than that of the wings, when viewed from different angles.

Down the road, the technology could find use in anti-counterfeit currency, ultra-bright mobile device displays, sensors, or even the fashion industry. KAIST isn’t the first institution to copy the reflective qualities of butterfly wings, however. A joint Pennsylvania State University/Universidad Autónoma de Madrid team has had success, as has a group from the University of Cambridge – although using different techniques.

IKEA cardboard digital camera

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:00:00 Z

This is a digital camera made of cardboard that Ikea included with its press kit at this year's Milan Design Week. It runs on two AA batteries (Ikea-branded) and features a swing-out USB plug, viewfinder cutout, shutter key and paperclip-friendly erase button. While there are no details on the sensor, lens or storage capacity, the camera holds up to 40 pictures. It's expected to land in Ikea stores at some point but exact pricing and availability are still a mystery. No matter -- this camera is sure to impress hipsters everywhere (and yes, that includes us).