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Researchers Create Artificial Insect Eye
maxzilla writes "An artificial insect eye that could be used in ultra-thin cameras has been developed by scientists in the US.The dimpled eye, contains over 8,500 hexagonal lenses packed into an area the size of a pinhead. The dome-shaped structure, described in the journal Science, is similar to a bee's eye. The researchers, from the University of California, Berkeley, say the work may also shed light on how insects developed such complex, visual systems. Darpa is also funding this project with applications expected for digital cameras and high speed motion detectors."
Now we won't have to provide blind insects with guide dogs!
Blessed are the 1337, for they shall pwn the earth.
So we are competing with nature now. Very soon the blind will have a better option at vision and the rest of us will be scrambling in the dark. That would be a funny sight.
There is nothing permanent except 'Change'- HERACLITUS,6TH CENTURY B.C
I'll be impressed when they can transplant this eye into a poor blind insect.
Does God treat us as servants or friends? Check my homepage.
The question, I want to ask is, is it still in research phase or professional services will start becoming available, when and how much it might cost?
There is pool of blind people in developing countries like India, China and so on. The inofrmation might be useful for them too.
[Posting anonymously to avoid karma whoring]
...They didn't create it, dosn't anyone watch X-Files, its a discover lead by the Aliens, who will use the new eye to further the artificial development of insects to carry Alien genetic material to form the super Alien race (we all know humans are the most suppiorer already, just not intelectual). Comming soon, nanite insects that "Repair" damaged organs or tissue...Yeah Repair
They mention swallowing a diagnostic tool
to see the insides of your stomach. The tool
would have this lens, some imaging chip and
a wireless link.
Now imagine swallowing a cockroach...
If you thought those fiber-optic based surveillance cams were bad, you'll hate these even more.
Yeah, this will find tons of apps in all sorts of useful places, but at a certain point, they'll be so cheap that you'll have to be afraid that people have hidden them somewhere, and that you are being watched.
This will be like camera phones, but squared and then cubed.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
According to TFA, "At the moment, the artificial eye is not connected to any kind of imaging device.".
I understand that whoever made this thing is eager to show it around but shouldn't they actually wait until they have something to show ?
It's becoming the norm nowadays to announce stuff that's only half done... I don't know if it's to satisfy investors or what but it sounds quite silly.
"look, we have this great insectile artificial eye !"
"impressive, what does it see ?"
"we don't know"
Well, duh.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
In his book The Age of Spiritual Machines , futurist Ray Kurzweil ventures that the transformation of humans from flesh-and-blood to total machine bodies will start with small augmentations like this, proceeding step by step until everything original is replaced.
Future wars will not be faught by giant robots or ultra-enhanced bionic soldiers or UAVs. They will be faught by fleets of artificial insects with collaborative AI.
Artificial insects are capable of a wide range of operations:
1) psyops: killing the important people of the opposing force (leaders, generals, scientists, etc) would be as easy as sending an insectoid armed with deadly poison. Undetectable, it can sting its victim while the victim is sleeping, or goes to the bathroom, or is in a public place surrounded by thousands of people.
2) blocking enemy forces: a swarm of insectoids can easily render whole armies inoperable in a blink of an eye: tanks, rocket launchers, comm centers can be rendered inoperable with few insectoids injecting the proper substances at the proper places.
3) invading a land by only killing humans, living infrastructure intact.
A swarm of insectoids can go undetected by radar, since insectoids can fly in small formations, and only joined at the destination.
Nanomachines can be used to create billions of one-time insectoids at very low cost.
Why is it that 99% of those articles try to be done with the boring facts as fast as possible and dive into the exciting world of "this may/can/will be used for [INSERT SOMETHING FROM A MOVIE OR SOMETHING THAT SOUNDS REALLY IMPORTANT]" speculation.
So if a new sort of "no unpopped kernels" popcorns was disovered, we'll have to read how this will lead to us flying to distant galaxies and finding the purpose of existence.
Ok so there's the Evolutionists, and the ID:ers, but other than Douglas Adams and myself, who else believes in the lesser known _Un-Intelligent (But Ambitious!) Designer_?
And that would explain the disappearance of the dinosaurs too. Ooops, fucked it up. Sowwy. We'll have to try again. Let's try Humans this time. Yes... Yes.. Excellent physical design, but brains too unevolved. Let Humans consume the Earth's resources disparately and divide their wealth unevenly until they realize the error of their ways. That should teach 'em! Next up, Vulcans.
See? Makes everything fit together neatly!
From: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB102.html
Claim CB102: Mutations are random noise; they do not add information. Evolution cannot cause an increase in information.
Source:
AIG, n.d. Creation Education Center. http://www.answersingenesis.org/cec/docs/CvE_repor t.asp
Response:
If these do not qualify as information, then nothing about information is relevant to evolution in the first place.
The biological literature is full of additional examples. A PubMed search (at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi) on "gene duplication" gives more than 3000 references.