MIT Femtosecond Laser Camera Shoots Pics Around Corners, No Periscope Required

To most of us, seeing what's around the corner before rounding the bend is known as premonition. For students and professors at MIT's Media Lab, it's called physics. The lab is working on a laser-based camera that can snap images around corners, imaging scenery that is beyond direct line of sight.

The camera works by incorporating complex computer algorithms with blasts from a femtosecond laser that issues ultra-short bursts of light lasting just one quadrillionth of a second. Those intense light bursts charge forward and illuminate a scene – even a scene around the corner from the source – sending photons bouncing around the area. Some of those photons make it back to the camera, which uses aforementioned complex computer mathematics to rebuild the scene around the corner, pixel by pixel.

Professor Ramesh Raskar, head of the Camera Culture group at MIT's Media Lab, equates the technology to X-ray vision, but instead of going through an obstacle the camera uses light to go around it. That could have some seriously handy applications in the arenas of defense, search and rescue, or machine vision. Rescuers could use the technology to map collapsed buildings to search for survivors or determine the safety situation inside, and robot cars could quickly map the area directly around a corner before it begins a turn to ensure it charts the proper path.

There's a bit more information via the Media Lab, but for more serious details check out this paper on transient imaging by one of the grad students involved with the project.

[MIT, TechRadar]

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Stuxnet Worm is a "Game Changer" for Global Cybersecurity, Top U.S. Official Tells Senate

The Stuxnet worm has generated plenty of commentary from computer industry experts and security pundits, but yesterday the U.S. government's senior cybersecurity expert at the Department of Homeland Security weighed in, calling the malicious program a "game changer" in cyber warfare. The head of the DHS's Cybersecurity Center, Sean McGurk, made the statement to the Senate Homeland Security Committee Wednesday.

We already knew Stuxnet was unprecedented, but it's what is unknown about it that makes it so unsettling. The code can enter systems undetected, steal information or alter processes, and basically live there causing a mess of things while the system appears to security software to be working properly. But authorities don't know where the Stuxnet worm came from, or what it was specifically designed to attack, McGurk told Senators.

That last part is debatable. While there is still a degree of uncertainty about Stuxnet's aims, cybersecurity firm Symantec released a report Friday saying that all evidence points to Iran as the target of the worm. "Stuxnet is a threat targeting a specific industrial control system likely in Iran, such as a gas pipeline or power plant," the report reads. "The ultimate goal of Stuxnet is to sabotage that facility by reprogramming programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to operate as the attackers intend them to, most likely out of their specified boundaries."

Symantec researchers were able to deduce this from the fact that Stuxnet requires specific industrial control systems from very specific vendors (one in Finalnd, the other in Tehran) to work, and more than 60 percent of infections have been reported in Iran (there have been approximately 44,000 unique infections reported; just 1,600 are in the United States). That has led to speculation that Stuxnet was designed to sabotage Tehran's controversial uranium enrichment program.

Still, global security experts appear co closer to pinpointing a source of the attack, which is a serious threat to systems that control infrastructure like power grids and pipelines around the globe. That's more than a little unsettling in a wired world. According to one cybersecuiry expert quoted by CNN, "we're not only susceptible, but we're not very well prepared."

[CNN, Symantec]

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Brilliant 10: Maurizio Porfiri, the Water Wizard

His research could lead to self-powered underwater vehicles that lead sea creatures away from manmade hazards

What does an engineer do when he needs insight? "I don't think," says Maurizio Porfiri. "I watch an insane amount of movies." He also tends listens to the Cure, devours novels, and tends to his tomatoes. That's not to say Porfiri is a slacker. He works across several fields to build underwater devices and puts in 12-hour days at the lab, but his best thoughts come to him while he's relaxing.

Consider his idea for biologically inspired robots that might influence animal behavior in nature. "If we borrow design from nature to build our robots, why not use the robots to assist nature?" says Porfiri, who is an assistant professor at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University. "Can we close the circle?" Maybe a robot fish could guide real fish away from power turbines or oil spills. Drawing on research that suggests that fish school by following the wake of other fish, Porfiri designed his robot to generate fishlike turbulence. An electric current from a battery makes a polymer in the tail expand and contract like muscles, producing an eerily natural-looking and silent movement. This spring, he put a biomimetic robot together with actual lab fish, which followed it about 25 percent of the time.

"As a kid I was always asking 'why this? why that?' until the family would get fed up," he says. That curiosity led him to a doctorate in theoretical and applied mechanics in his native Italy and, because he wanted to work over here, an American one in engineering mechanics. Then he fell into a postdoc working on algorithms to control autonomous submarines, and underwater applications became his life's work. The waters that cover about 70 percent of the Earth's surface are basically unexplored. But underwater vehicle systems lag behind their surface counterparts in power (solar can't be used in the deep) and communications systems (Wi-Fi doesn't exactly crank through 300 feet of liquid).

Porfiri's lab could close that gap. He's creating simple algorithms that could help underwater robots form into schools, he's been investigating polymers that harvest kinetic energy from water, and he's designing a new robot—a mammal-safe one, without external blades. If any of those things trip him up, he says, it will be time for a sixth viewing of Fargo.

See the rest of PopSci's Brilliant 10 for 2010.

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Best iPod Nano Watch Strap?

There are several other companies making watch straps for Apple’s latest iPod Nano but the NanoWatch is by far my favorite. The designers have been working feverishly since the Nano (6G) made its debut and although technically late in the game, I believed it paid off. The back of the strap is debossed to perfectly level the Nano’s built-in clip. It’s the only company I know of that makes their straps out of eco-friendly silicon – that’s no nickel or phthalater. It’s also the only company who makes silicon to perfectly match the Nano’s color range. Only €18.00.

Designer: Thomas Frederiksen (Buy it here)

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Awesome Screenshot Captures and Annotates Web Sites in Google Chrome [Video]

Chrome: Awesome Screenshot is a screen capture and annotation tool with text editing, drawing, and free image sharing—all accessible from the Google Chrome toolbar. More »

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