Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Researchers shrink camera to the size of a salt grain

engineering.princeton.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 105 posts

Re: Researchers shrink camera to the size of a salt grain

#11

Post by inter_netuser »

daveguy wrote: post #8
14 wrote: post #5

Incredible. I guess the first use I thought of was swallowing the camera to identify bowel issues. Can’t wait to see what they come up with.

If it could see through feces, that would be awesome. The worst part, by far, of a colonoscopy is the prep. And the prep is needed for a clean view. A smaller camera isn't going to help with cleaning things up. Improving the optical clarity of existing small-scope procedures (like cardioscope) would probably be the first application.

what prep did you use?

Afaik, GIs much rather prefer to use the scope, and would only use pillcam if everything but the small intestine hasn't been ruled out.

Re: Researchers shrink camera to the size of a salt grain

#12

Post by inter_netuser »

williamtrask wrote: post #3

…something something privacy…

even if banned legally, the amounts of illegal surveillance will be mindboggling.

It'll only keep shrinking, until it is the size of dust particles, just another order of magnitude.

How do you prevent dust-cameras from being around? a pre-emptive EMP pulse lol?

Re: Researchers shrink camera to the size of a salt grain

#14

Post by SECProto »

cardamomo wrote: post #9
bitwize wrote: post #4

Localizers are a thing now.

I had the same thought! Now, can they create a mesh network and operate as a distributed processor?

And perhaps most importantly, do they have a low enough weight-surface area ratio that they float, and low enough power requirements to be powered by almost indetectable microwave pulses

Re: Researchers shrink camera to the size of a salt grain

#15

Post by JoeAltmaier »

So privacy will evaporate. Imagine dropping millions of these from a drone, carpeting a city. They'd be carried everywhere on clothing, animals, wind. Go to any location and scan for local cameras, download.

Privacy will have to be redefined. We've done this lots of times. You hear what goes on behind the bathroom door, you don't say anything, you actually forget it. Because it's not polite to snoop.

So in future even if you see something you shouldn't on camera, it'd be boorish to mention it.

That doesn't solve the police state of course.

Re: Researchers shrink camera to the size of a salt grain

#17

Post by dataflow »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #15

So privacy will evaporate. Imagine dropping millions of these from a drone, carpeting a city. They'd be carried everywhere on clothing, animals, wind. Go to any location and scan for local cameras, download. Privacy will have to be redefined. We've done this lots of times. You hear what goes on behind the bathroom door, you don't say anything, you actually forget it. Because it's not polite to snoop. So in future eve…

> Imagine dropping millions of these from a drone, carpeting a city.

Doesn't it still need a source of power?

Re: Researchers shrink camera to the size of a salt grain

#18

Post by cvakang »

dtgriscom wrote: post #13

The article keeps saying "camera", but we only see the lens. How big is the sensor and cabling?

Yes, I had the same question. But if the lens miniaturised so does the rest. Imagine swallowing this and getting picturs of your inside of body in a smart phone.

Re: Researchers shrink camera to the size of a salt grain

#20

Post by Cyclical »

Very cool! Fantastic that they were able to do this in silicon nitride, as that'll make commercialization and scalability much easier. Nitride is one of the more common MEMS manufacturing materials, and from the (admittedly tiny, which makes sense since they're trying to commercialize) fabrication section of the paper it seems like they're using a standard RIE process to manufacture the optical posts. I'm interested to know how they controlled for the isotropy of the plasma process without using DRIE, which is frequently used for these kinds of high aspect-ratio devices.
Post reply on HN