OK, my memory sucks. Glass has an index of refraction of around 1.52. Air is 1.003. Diamond is 2.418. Vacuum (no surprise) is 1.
Water changes it's refraction index based on temperature -- Ice having a lower index than water at room temperature. Should mean we can use interferometry to measure liquid temperature at a distance, right?
However, since a lens is going to need to curve light ANYWAY, you'd have some refraction or a LOT MORE based on the current applied to the ferrofluid lens.
Their system uses a bionic muscle (this tech is probably over a decade old by now) and I'm guessing it just expands and contracts so that a lens gets closer or more distant. They probably have to use the in camera sensors to determine if they've adjusted focus correctly.
This system would certainly lower the cost of focusing -- but my system would be more like the eye of some amphibians who use (I believe) an enclosed fluid layer along with a muscle contracted lens to focus. The ADVANTAGE is that they can focus in and out of water and see "into water". Birds use polarized lenses built into their eye to reduce surface scatter. It makes sense that amphibians adapted this way, as they came from aquatic creatures and "carry" their water with them. Humans don't live around water, so we package all our fluids on the inside -- not as good at adaptive vision but we also dry out a lot less. ;-)
Okay, so now we've got Star Wars, to go along with Dune, the Terminators and Battlestar Galactica,
but I have to say what Fake_William_Shatner reminded me of was…The Man Who Fell to Earth.
Damn -- I think I was dizzy for about 12 years after I fell too -- makes a lot of sense of my childhood in and out of special ed classes. ;-)
Star Wars has awful tech -- except for how the Death Star weapon works, which I think was just an accident to "make something look cool." But if I were making a fusion beam weapon -- I'd have something like nuclear explosions in a plasma aimed at each other over a focusing parabola saturated with radio waves -- though I suspect it would be purple in hue.
Force fields however, would probably exist between arrays of coherent light (as light can be used to affect "space time" with a few tricks that can be done with a Bose Einstein condensate) -- though again, Star Wars doesn't bother to explain anything and they make "pew pew" sounds in space. Plus -- people need "the force" to aim better than a robot? Star Trek was way more on top of science -- they just tell the computer "target their propulsion system." In the future NOBOYD misses. It's just a macho hangover that we still have people feeling really deadly because they can aim -- and no human can beat a video game unless the computer is DESIGNED to lose. Almost everything in the Star Trek universe is conceivably doable, except I can figure 5 ways to create a transporter -- but their "atomize and store in a computer buffer" system is basically impossible. Also -- I don't believe Time travel is possible -- time is merely an energy potential state and there is no existing past or future. On the plus side, we exist because there is no such thing as time. We wouldn't have reality, otherwise (just my theory). And there are many, potential Universes but they all resolve to one -- so I broke with the MutliVerse and BubbleVerse theories that Hawkings is fond of. And no current theories seem to mirror my own about dimensional inversion at the beginning and end of the Universe. I predict I'm going to be right, but someone else will get the credit.
Battlestar Galactica got a lot cooler in the revamp -- but their tech is either basic, unexplained, or magic. The "undetectable human like robots" are comprised of robotically created cells at such a "nano-level" that are indistinguishable from cells? So basically it's all biology but for the sake of a story line, we call them Androids. No chemical test can distinguish them from cells, so how could they be robotic? The rest is "buck rogers" and there is no attempt to explain the technology.
Heck, I went far afield here and need to bring myself out of the clouds again. Take the kids to see "Edge of Tomorrow." Nothing like a blockbuster to turn off the brain!
I would think bokeh would be improved though. In my experience, the more aperture blades there are, the nicer the bokeh (for a given aperture and subject distance), and this is pretty much infinite blades.
I don't know that this patent excludes multiples or not -- I don't know that much about patent law, but it seems like a reasonable design direction. The patent link above was broken, and the Google patent search doesn't seem to pick it up just yet... and that exhausted the amount to which I care to figure it out
You may be right on bokeh, I was thinking you needed the blades to produce it.
I'm waiting for the day when there's only a single camera module with both front and back-facing lens, taking advantage of the full width of the phone body. Physical mirrors inside could control which lens was "active".
I'm waiting for the day when there's only a single camera module with both front and back-facing lens, taking advantage of the full width of the phone body. Physical mirrors inside could control which lens was "active".
I'm not sure it's practical. Look at the form factor difference between a Rebel DSLR and a comparable mirrorless 4/3 camera. That extra volume is mostly to accommodate a moving mirror.
A second sensor is going to be cheaper and smaller than a mirror with an accurate actuator. If the optics are compact enough to stack them back to back, you could just have them join at the sensor.
Optically though, the most important thing is glass, and more glass is generally better, so a bigger camera is going to accommodate more glass and a larger sensor. Both of those will lead to much nicer images.
This is a cool invention, but it represents more than that. Apple is no less innovative than Google, but Google is considered the great engine of innovation, the a Willy Wonka of tech, while Apple is considered to be content upgrading existing products. The difference is that Apple doesn't talk about what they do in their labs. The only way we can guess is by looking at their patent filings. If Google had come out with this, they would have gone farther to get publicity for this.
Muscles are motor in reality, nature's motors. Bionics here we come. I'm very glad to see Apple into this sort of future mind set. I'm sure Google will be also looking into this in relation to their massive investment in robotics. All joking apart, the Cylons are coming!
IMO Apple is very innovative tho perhaps in a more low-key way. To be honest as high profile as Apple is and as popular as their products are (iPhone probably owned by more media folks and bloggers than any other smartphone by a mile) they don't get as much credit for innovation as some other large companies, with the ranking from Boston Consulting Group being the only exception I came across in a brief search. They put Apple at number one last year, followed by Samsung at 2 and Google in third place. BCG usually has Apple in first year to year. https://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/articles/innovation_growth_most_innovative_companies_2013_lessons_from_leaders/
IMO Apple is very innovative tho perhaps in a more low-key way. To be honest as high profile as Apple is and as popular as their products are (iPhone probably owned by more media folks and bloggers than any other smartphone by a mile) they don't get as much credit for innovation as some other large companies, with the ranking from Boston Consulting Group being the only exception I came across in a brief search. They put Apple at number one last year, followed by Samsung at 2 and Google in third place. BCG usually has Apple in first year to year. https://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/articles/innovation_growth_most_innovative_companies_2013_lessons_from_leaders/
This could be partially due to the impact of the innovations. IPod, huge. IPhone, huge. IPhone 5s, incremental. Artificial muscle on a lens... Phone cameras can focus fine now, so it will have a small impact.
Self driving cars and global Internet coverage have a much bigger impact, overall. We'll see what is actually released though...
Comments
OK, my memory sucks. Glass has an index of refraction of around 1.52. Air is 1.003. Diamond is 2.418. Vacuum (no surprise) is 1.
Water changes it's refraction index based on temperature -- Ice having a lower index than water at room temperature. Should mean we can use interferometry to measure liquid temperature at a distance, right?
However, since a lens is going to need to curve light ANYWAY, you'd have some refraction or a LOT MORE based on the current applied to the ferrofluid lens.
Their system uses a bionic muscle (this tech is probably over a decade old by now) and I'm guessing it just expands and contracts so that a lens gets closer or more distant. They probably have to use the in camera sensors to determine if they've adjusted focus correctly.
This system would certainly lower the cost of focusing -- but my system would be more like the eye of some amphibians who use (I believe) an enclosed fluid layer along with a muscle contracted lens to focus. The ADVANTAGE is that they can focus in and out of water and see "into water". Birds use polarized lenses built into their eye to reduce surface scatter. It makes sense that amphibians adapted this way, as they came from aquatic creatures and "carry" their water with them. Humans don't live around water, so we package all our fluids on the inside -- not as good at adaptive vision but we also dry out a lot less. ;-)
Okay, so now we've got Star Wars, to go along with Dune, the Terminators and Battlestar Galactica,
but I have to say what Fake_William_Shatner reminded me of was…The Man Who Fell to Earth.
Damn -- I think I was dizzy for about 12 years after I fell too -- makes a lot of sense of my childhood in and out of special ed classes. ;-)
Star Wars has awful tech -- except for how the Death Star weapon works, which I think was just an accident to "make something look cool." But if I were making a fusion beam weapon -- I'd have something like nuclear explosions in a plasma aimed at each other over a focusing parabola saturated with radio waves -- though I suspect it would be purple in hue.
Force fields however, would probably exist between arrays of coherent light (as light can be used to affect "space time" with a few tricks that can be done with a Bose Einstein condensate) -- though again, Star Wars doesn't bother to explain anything and they make "pew pew" sounds in space. Plus -- people need "the force" to aim better than a robot? Star Trek was way more on top of science -- they just tell the computer "target their propulsion system." In the future NOBOYD misses. It's just a macho hangover that we still have people feeling really deadly because they can aim -- and no human can beat a video game unless the computer is DESIGNED to lose. Almost everything in the Star Trek universe is conceivably doable, except I can figure 5 ways to create a transporter -- but their "atomize and store in a computer buffer" system is basically impossible. Also -- I don't believe Time travel is possible -- time is merely an energy potential state and there is no existing past or future. On the plus side, we exist because there is no such thing as time. We wouldn't have reality, otherwise (just my theory). And there are many, potential Universes but they all resolve to one -- so I broke with the MutliVerse and BubbleVerse theories that Hawkings is fond of. And no current theories seem to mirror my own about dimensional inversion at the beginning and end of the Universe. I predict I'm going to be right, but someone else will get the credit.
Battlestar Galactica got a lot cooler in the revamp -- but their tech is either basic, unexplained, or magic. The "undetectable human like robots" are comprised of robotically created cells at such a "nano-level" that are indistinguishable from cells? So basically it's all biology but for the sake of a story line, we call them Androids. No chemical test can distinguish them from cells, so how could they be robotic? The rest is "buck rogers" and there is no attempt to explain the technology.
Heck, I went far afield here and need to bring myself out of the clouds again. Take the kids to see "Edge of Tomorrow." Nothing like a blockbuster to turn off the brain!
Then it can't survive the trip back through time¡ (why else does everyone arrive naked?)
The future is clothes optional?
You may be right on bokeh, I was thinking you needed the blades to produce it.
Too late ... Google are already working on artificial sphincter muscles ...
So tasteless, but so very funny.
You just defined English humor ...
Too late ... Google are already working on artificial sphincter muscles ...
Too late… Google glass was created to help target assh0les...
I'm waiting for the day when there's only a single camera module with both front and back-facing lens, taking advantage of the full width of the phone body. Physical mirrors inside could control which lens was "active".
I'm waiting for the day when there's only a single camera module with both front and back-facing lens, taking advantage of the full width of the phone body. Physical mirrors inside could control which lens was "active".
I'm not sure it's practical. Look at the form factor difference between a Rebel DSLR and a comparable mirrorless 4/3 camera. That extra volume is mostly to accommodate a moving mirror.
A second sensor is going to be cheaper and smaller than a mirror with an accurate actuator. If the optics are compact enough to stack them back to back, you could just have them join at the sensor.
Optically though, the most important thing is glass, and more glass is generally better, so a bigger camera is going to accommodate more glass and a larger sensor. Both of those will lead to much nicer images.
By whom?!
By whom?!
Many people from the media to Wall Street to even people on this very forum.
And what has Google done to claim this title?
So morons, then.
" src="http://forums-files.appleinsider.com/images/smilies//lol.gif" />
Let's keep it simple. Something that supports the theory that Google innovates: Self driving cars.
I brought a snack, so we can talk this through.
Doing a quick patent search I was pretty surprised to see how much activity there's been with artificial muscle and lenses, especially in human eyes.
https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=pts&hl=en&q="artificial+muscle"+eye&num=10&gws_rd=ssl#hl=en&q="artificial+muscle"+lens&tbm=pts
Fast Company for one, tho they're hardly at the top of list on tech matters.
http://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2014/google
Washinton Post too, tho they have even a lesser tech pedigree.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/01/14/7-reasons-why-google-is-the-most-fascinating-company-in-the-world/
Over at Forbes you don't see Google mentioned until #47.
http://www.forbes.com/innovative-companies/list/
IMO Apple is very innovative tho perhaps in a more low-key way. To be honest as high profile as Apple is and as popular as their products are (iPhone probably owned by more media folks and bloggers than any other smartphone by a mile) they don't get as much credit for innovation as some other large companies, with the ranking from Boston Consulting Group being the only exception I came across in a brief search. They put Apple at number one last year, followed by Samsung at 2
https://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/articles/innovation_growth_most_innovative_companies_2013_lessons_from_leaders/
This could be partially due to the impact of the innovations. IPod, huge. IPhone, huge. IPhone 5s, incremental. Artificial muscle on a lens... Phone cameras can focus fine now, so it will have a small impact.
Self driving cars and global Internet coverage have a much bigger impact, overall. We'll see what is actually released though...