cientists from Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are the first to develop a curvilinear camera, much like the human eye, with the significant feature of a zoom capability, unlike the human eye.
The "eyeball camera" has a 3.5x optical zoom, takes sharp images, is inexpensive to make and is only the size of a nickel. (A higher zoom is possible with the technology.).
While the camera won't be appearing at Best Buy any time soon, the tunable camera -- once optimized -- should be useful in a number of applications, including night-vision surveillance, robotic vision, endoscopic imaging and consumer electronics.
