Enhanced vision -- seeing the invisible, zooming-in past the limits of microscopy, making artificial eyeballs from scratch to give sight to the blind -- nothing says welcome to the future like advances in vision technology.
Image credit: Sorry I can't find the source for this, but you can call it face-rec camo-tech. It makes you invisible.
New method could democratize deep learning-enhanced microscopy
Mar 2021, phys.org
Deep learning is a potential tool for scientists to glean more detail from low-resolution images in microscopy, but it's often difficult to gather enough baseline data to train computers in the process. Now, a new method developed by scientists at the Salk Institute could make the technology more accessible—by taking high-resolution images, and artificially degrading them.The new tool, which the researchers call a "crappifier," could make it significantly easier for scientists to get detailed images of cells or cellular structures that have previously been difficult to observe because they require low-light conditions, such as mitochondria, which can divide when stressed by the lasers used to illuminate them.
Yes, the crappifier. If you have any idea how neural network machine learning works, you will immediately get why this is some sneaky shit.
They take good microphotographs (example: Nikon Small World Gallery) and intentionally make them crappy and hard to see. They degrade the photo artificially, but then train the network backwards to learn how to make a good photo out of a bad one. Once it's trained, they start giving it "naturally" bad photos of things we can't get good pictures of with current microscopic technology, and let it apply what it learned about bad photos.
via Salk Institute: Deep learning-based point-scanning super-resolution imaging, Nature Methods (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41592-021-01080-z
Smartphone camera used to diagnose viral infections
Dec 2020, phys.org
Full circle, we will soon be tossing coffee grinds on the table to predict the future. Here's an exapmle of how we can now see things we didn't even know we were looking for, like how the bubbles in your body-fluid broth have written in them your viral exposome.
Body fluid samples are placed into a channel on the catalytic microchip device, which is then doused with a small amount of hydrogen peroxide. The resulting reaction leads to the formation of bubbles. The bubbles develop in unique patterns based in part on viruses in the fluid sample. The user points their smartphone camera at the bubbling sample and launches the deep-learning algorithm that has already been trained to identify the patterns and thereby recognize the presence of viruses.Mohamed S. Draz et al. Virus detection using nanoparticles and deep neural network–enabled smartphone system, Science Advances (2020). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abd5354
Zoom hack reveals text contents by viewing shoulder movement
Nov 2020, phys.org
Jesus make it stop:
"They focused on the movement of their shoulders and arms to extrapolate the actions of their fingers as they typed.""In a controlled setting, with specific chairs, keyboards and webcam, Jadiwala said he achieved an accuracy rate of 75 percent. However, in uncontrolled environments, accuracy dropped to only one out of every five words being correctly identified."via the University of Texas: Zoom on the Keystrokes: Exploiting Video Calls for Keystroke Inference Attacks, Murtuza Jadiwala et al. arXiv:2010.12078 [cs.CR] arxiv.org/abs/2010.12078
Discovery makes the invisible visible
Jan 2021, phys.org
The nano-revolution comes to phase contrast microscopy. Sub-surface Nanoaperture Arrays.
via La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science: Eugeniu Balaur et al. Plasmon-induced enhancement of ptychographic phase microscopy via sub-surface nanoaperture arrays, Nature Photonics (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41566-020-00752-0
Mantis shrimp inspires new breed of light sensors
Mar 2021, phys.org
The mantis shrimp strikes again, patron saint of all superhuman vision technology. Hyperspectral.
via North Carolina State University: "Mantis shrimp-inspired organic photodetector for simultaneous hyperspectral and polarimetric imaging" Science Advances (2021).
For those artificial retinas you've been waiting for:
Color-sensitive inkjet-printed pixelated artificial retina based on semiconducting polymers
Jan 2021, phys.org
Manuela Ciocca et al. Colour-sensitive conjugated polymer inkjet-printed pixelated artificial retina model studied via a bio-hybrid photovoltaic device, Scientific Reports (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-77819-z
Retinal implants can give artificial vision to the blind
Mar 2021, phys.org
via Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne: Naïg Aurelia Ludmilla Chenais et al. Photovoltaic retinal prosthesis restores high-resolution responses to single-pixel stimulation in blind retinas, Communications Materials (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s43246-021-00133-2
Color blindness-correcting contact lenses
Mar 2021, phys.org
via American Chemical Society: Ahmed E. Salih et al. Gold Nanocomposite Contact Lenses for Color Blindness Management, ACS Nano (2021). DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.0c09657
