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Origami Helps Cellphone Cameras To Focus
Sea Monkey writes "New Scientist has an article on the development of novel and ultra-cheap micromotor technology. It's a new type of linear motor, 'using a technique closer to origami than engineering' to cut slits out of tiny piezoelectric ceramic parts. One of the envisioned applications is taking a sheet of the material with the motors, wrapping it into a tube and moving a lens up and down it - instant tiny movable focusing element for cellphone camera lenses."
The whole camera on a cell phone thing always reminds me of the geneticist in South Park. "This monkey is useless to me, it only has one ass."
Cameras on phones are totally worthless for the general public. Yes, there are a few applications, but they pretty much are not even fun toys. I mean, cell phones in general have enough problems with the networks. It's like they're trying to mask that by deploying this crap.
"We just created one of the great nanotech ideas of the year. How can we incorporate this into cell phones?"
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
Oh man, I work with PZT all the time. It is so
brittle it hurts. Dropping this camera will be
a disaster. Heck, even the kinda jolt from
car traffic and the like (stuff that used to
make old cd players skip) may break this motor.
Thinking about this invention, I'd love to get my hands on this stuff to line the insides of my homebrew Newtonian Dobsonian 22cm f7.3 telescope. I think that this would make a cheaper and lighter solution to microfocus the eyepiece. After all I'll be running a webcam off it and eventually will fit steppers for alt/az control as well. So an electronic focussing element would be just great.
Clear Skies
Torc
-- NSY - SY OOT - Doric signs on local shop doors.
The description in the article sounds analogous to the way muscle fibers work. Mother nature is a great structural engineer, and she's been at it a lot longer than we have. Human technology has been inspired repeatedly by nature. One easy example is the Wright Brothers. Others may follow in replies. (I hope so, anyway. I'm sort of in the mood to hear a few more...)
An explanation here: UIC
A cool animation here: San Diego S.U.
Who said paper is dead?
Canon has used ultrasonic piezoelectric motors in their lenses for years. These are the "mexican wave" (wtf?) motors that the New Scientist article mentions. I'm not sure why they'd be any more expensive than the origami motors described here.
Piezoelectric stick-slip actuators are nothing new. Those units built at Cambridge apparently pre-date the units mentioned in the article, but the surface preparation technique is somewhat different.
The article says it works using vibrating surfaces that are roughened in such a way that they can use "stick and slip" to ratchet things along. Wouldn't this move objects in one direction only? How could you use this to move something against the grain of the rough surfaces?
... then contradict yourself in the body. Cameraphones are useless to you, but the general public definitely sees a use for them, and they are selling quite well. It's interesting to be able to post pictures of a fire near your office to your online journal while you're still out.
Just because you don't see anything interesting doesn't mean that the rest of the world doesn't. I'm still kicking myself for not having my camera snap-on when I wound up driving next to the Batmobile (the 60's one!).
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
If you put a sheet of this stuff on your shoes, can you skate on concrete or climb up walls without moving your feet?
How about a pad of this stuff you could drive your car onto, then apply the current to have your car creep sideways. Would be great for repositioning your car in your garage.
No more roller-ball conveyer belts, just a sheet of this stuff.
Think about a bodysuit made of it. Ridges out = you can slither around like a snake without effort. Ridges in, and it could be hooked up to a computer for a full body sensory feedback from your favorite games.
I don't think you even know what prior art means. This is new, and it's innovative because it can achive the same thing as the other type of motors at a lower cost. Did you even read the aritcal? They're not trying to patent the electric motor you know.
Laugh not; a recent kidnapping attempt (quick Google search for news story about the incident) had the teenager being accosted pull out his cellphone, take pictures of the attempted kidnapper and the license plate of the car he was driving, and ran off; the pictures were used by the police to identify the kidnapper.
The problem with current moving sidewalks are the very complex mechanics and the "return" mechanism for the belt/stairs, etc.
Instead, maybe tiles of this material could be manufactured to pave pedestrian areas. They would save energy because they would not need to vibrate all the time, just one somebody is gliding by. And the outer tiles could "move" slower than the inner tiles, so that you could step on to a surface at a low rate, and then accelerate gradually by walking over into the "fast" lane.
If the piezoelectric ceramic would be made a bit translucent, then perhaps solar cells could be incorporated, and then flat batteries under that, so that the system could be self powered. It can charge all day, but only has to vibrate when a human speeds by. And presumably the tiles could chat with each other, maybe via low rate IR signals, so that upstream tiles could let downstream tiles know that a person is on the way and what speed they are at.
Heck, the panels could perhaps even have two slightly different angles of activation, so that folks could get on and off automatically, using their GPS-enabled pedestrain mapping device.
And presumaly the panels could be pressure sensitive, such that they could feel your feet leaning to slow down or speed up, kind of like a Segway.
Yeah, OK, this is a tall order. BUT, once such tiles were available, they would be ecconomical in the long run.
Putting these on the soles of shoes might have a similar effect, though I think the power management and accessibility favors piez-paved services vs piezo-sneakers.