What do you get when a bunch of Geeks research ways to increase survivability of Soldiers on the battlefield? You get something called multimaterial fibers.
The fibers consist of an array of metal electrodes connected to a semiconductor and are covered by an insulating sheath. The semiconductor layer detects light. Connecting it to an electrode, and then connecting the electrode to a microprocessor creates a fabric that can capture images.
In other words, you have a fabric that can act like a camera.
One of the applications proposed for the fabric consists of incorporating the fabric into the uniform of a soldier. The fabric is connected to a display in the soldier's helmet, providing the soldier with a 360 degree field of vision.
The fabric has an advantage over the use of lenses in that it collects information over its entire surface area. The fabric would still be functional even if one section was damaged, unlike lenses which can be rendered inoperative by a simple scratch on the surface.
The initial release on the creation of the fibers included some of the other potential uses, many of them non-military in nature. The fibers could be used in a computer screen, which would react to incoming light. Remember that Nintendo Duck Hunting Game? Well, with this type of screen you could use a laser pistol to shoot at the screen and the screen would detect where the laser was hitting it.
Fabric lenses could also be made much larger that the lenses that can currently be used. Conceivably, you could have a fabric lens much larger than the one currently in use in ground based telescopes. A larger lens equates to greater sensitivity. Plus, fabric lenses are constrained in the shape they have to be in. You could have a spherical fabric lens which would have a complete field of vision. Imagine security cameras with no blind spots.
Right now the technology is very rudimentary in nature, only able to take rudimentary pictures and only from very close to the source. The team working on the project expects the technology to advance fairly rapidly.
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