Category: Mad Science

New Image Sensor Will Show What The Eyes See, And A Camera Cannot

An important step towards my coveted “eyeball camera” that would show what the human eye sees without having to worry about exposure
-Greg
New Image Sensor Will Show What The Eyes See, And A Camera Cannot

This sounds great, the dynamic range of regular imaging chips is pretty bad. The Foveon chip from Sigma is better than most in this department but still can’t give you what the human eye can see.
If you had the CPU time and extra cameras you could layer many photos of the same scene that have been taken at different exposures to expand the dynamic range of a camera. It works pretty well, except you can get halos around bright objects due to the ‘bloom’ on the over exposed images. Years ago (like around 1989) I conceived an idea of of a pair of adaptive sun glasses. The lenses would be made from clear liquid crystals sheet. There would be a camera that would ‘survey’ the scene in front of the person wearing them and lower the brightness of the highlights (the glasses would know where the wearers eyes were vie IR sensors so the ‘dodging’ would be properly placed). One application would be for driving at night, you would not be blinded by on coming traffic, they headlights would be ‘dulled’ so your eyes would not be dazzled. I’d build a prototype of this but I just don’t have the cash right now. If any investors see this and can realize the obvious monster potential for such a product, please contact me. 🙂
-John

Nuke a Super Computer

I’ve never quite understood what is gained by more powerful computers in simulating nuclear explosions. It seems to me that once a critical level of granularity was achieved in the simulation space, increasing capabilities would produce no additional accuracy. The computers are way cool, though. Maybe that’s the point.
Ultrafast Supercomputer to Simulate Nuke Explosion

-Greg

(I think it’s because as the devices age the radiation and materials in the devices will transmute and stress the components and may cause unknown results. The device may fire, but the yeald may be too low or it may result in a dirty shot. -John)