*I would call this totally weird, if I hadn't been writing science fiction about
all-fabric computers for ages now. "Camera as furoshiki." Okay, sure,
bring the noise, MIT.
http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/22870/
(...)
Fabien Sorin, the postdoctoral researcher who developed the fiber camera, says that he made a 36-by-36 grid of fibers and connected the fiber's semiconducting sensors to electrodes. When light hits the semiconductors, it displaces electrons within the material, creating an electrical current. The intensity of this current from the fibers is input into algorithms, running on an attached computer, that create the image of an object placed near the sheet of fiber.
The eight sensors are grouped in pairs consisting of an inner and outer sensor, Sorin says. "If you know the thickness of the first layer, and you know the type of material, then you can reconstruct the energy of the photon because this energy is directly related to how deep a photon can penetrate into a material." In other words, the inner sensor provides information that lets the researchers find the energy, which corresponds to the wavelength, or color, of light.
The outer layer of sensors is used to determine the angle at which the light is entering the fiber, which could be used to create 3-D images, says Sorin. The sensors are distributed evenly around the center of the fiber. If some sensors are collecting a large amount of photons, but adjacent ones are not, the researchers can determine at what angle the photons originate.
The work is a very clever demonstration of how fibers with multiple materials can be used for various applications, says Juan Hinestroza, a professor of fiber science and apparel design at Cornell University. "I believe it is just the first of many possible applications to come for this technology," he says. Hinestroza suspects that these sorts of fibers could be weaved or knitted into fabrics to sense temperature, occupancy, and traffic in a room or terminal, or to detect the presence of traces of certain hazardous gases....
