MIT's "MetaMaterials": Optical Clothing for a James-Bond World

With cameras in everything from phones to other, smaller phones, it may seem we've caught up with Q branch (the fictional research and development division of the British Secret Service) - which is why the boffins have built an imager without any camera at all. That'll teach us to think we know anything! A brand new nanofabric which can be used as cloth is now collecting images - meaning paparrazzi will soon be irrelevant, as we'll be able to get nude pictures direct from the clothing.

MIT researchers developed a sophisticated nanotech mesh with woven semiconductor fibers able to detect incoming light. Each fiber can relay its reception via sub-millimeter electrical contacts, and an external computer reconstructs the image from the inputs (extrapolating from the signals from all fibers and a recording of the design of the fabric). The optofabric has already been used to detect a smiley face, meaning it can read half the internet (once it gets fleshtones it'll have the other half).

This is the extreme other end of the "optical cloth" tactical spectrum. With most attention still on the idea of invisibility cloaks, metamaterials designed to redirect light around you, the increased information structure of the modern world means that detecting that light is far more useful. If you're invisible, you're helping yourself - if you're relaying all the data in all directions, you're helping everyone with you.

The are still several hurdles to clear before your fashion can Flickr photos for you - the fibers can only detect two frequencies of light, and it would take an immense amount of computing power to reconstruct any but the smallest images, never mind a full three-D map. And while the fiber doesn't need lenses, we still use the things for a reason - there's only a certain amount of data you can collect without them. But if you were to network the fibercloth of a team of people, or even an entire city, you gain whole new levels of information. Whether this is the ultimate security or Big Brother Boutique is up to your attitude.

Camera-like Fabric http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-10281376-39.html