
Simultaneous Imaging and Energy Harvesting in CMOS Image Sensor Pixels - touristtam
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/06/under-a-millimeter-wide-and-powered-by-light-these-tiny-cameras-could-hide-almost-anywhere/
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larkeith
This seems like it could be combined with battery-free "no-power" WiFi tags
[1] to provide functionally indefinite surveillance at a minimal price tag.

While 1 kb/s bandwidth and a range of only 2 m limit the current applications
of such a combination, the potential once both technologies become more mature
is staggering (and rather terrifying).

[1]
[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140804134215.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140804134215.htm)

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amelius
You still need to process or transmit the images, which might be costlier than
recording the images.

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cf498
For transmitting data on an energy harvesting budget there is stuff like LoRa,
but Image is out of the question here because of the size.

Much more likely is that such devices will be used for tracking, in situations
where GPS is using to much power. Especially, as the calculations for that are
done at the receivers instead of the transmitter.

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lawlessone
"It turns out that photosensitive diodes aren’t totally opaque — in fact,
quite a lot of light passes right through them. So putting the solar cell
under the image sensor doesn’t actually deprive it of light."

Does that also mean we could put multiple layers of photosensitive diodes
under one another to perhaps get higher resolution images? or better images in
the dark?

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janekm
Such a sensor (used to) exist, Foveon X3. It is very interesting as it also
uses the differential absorption of different wavelengths of light at
different depths in silicon to distinguish colours:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foveon_X3_sensor](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foveon_X3_sensor)
It had various advantages, and some disadvantages related to distinguishing
colours, but ultimately wasn’t very successful in the market despite getting
shipped in some DSLRs, possibly due to the marketing challenges (Bayer array
sensor manufacturers count each R/G/B sub pixel as part of their “megapixel”
count, so the Foveon sensor appeared low resolution by that metric).

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bitL
My Sigma SD1M still produces mind-blowing images I can't do with high-end
Nikons and Canons. Foveon can truly make magical images, though there were so
many issues with DSLRs it shipped on, e.g. they were almost always awfully
slow and had very bad (but film-like) low-light performance. Also, original
research suggested that to get realistic colors, up to 7 layers are needed.
Bayers OTOH just interpolate and cook colors, but with the increase of
resolution might at some point perform similarly, when lens limit is hit.
Foveon was also always manufactured by a far worse process than e.g. Sony top-
end sensors, and its quantum efficiency was orders of magnitude worse.

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CarVac
Bayers don't cook colors when they interpolate, they cook _edges_.

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fredley
Although I couldn't stand _The Circle_ (book or film), it did raise questions
about what happens to society when we can place extremely cheap cameras
everywhere invisibly that require no battery, and hence can operate almost
indefinitely.

In _The Circle_ they are owned by a pseudo Goog-book company that publishes
(and records) every video feed (and its history) publicly.

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primitur
I started to wonder about this, but then I realized that what we're really
witnessing right now is the birth of the primordial Grey Goo. I mean,
omnipresent super-observation states may be one angle of Our Future Dystopia,
but I think energy-harvesting super computers that can reproduce is right
around the corner on this one ..

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fredley
Reproduction is one thing I'm really not concerned about actually. Is it even
possible to build any kind of silicon-based electronics outside of a fab?

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javajosh
We've already entered into a period of symbiosis, where software controls
human bodies. It seems unlikely that machines can ever do better than a human
hand (but can do better almost everywhere else!)

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fredley
That software is still created by humans, subject to human forces though. You
can characterise many things as 'training' or 'evolving' humans to serve their
purposes, e.g. gut bacteria, poppies, cows, dogs, toxoplasma gondii, hammers
etc. The characterisation doesn't tell you much though.

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nukeop
There was a science fiction story about a society where privacy was completely
impossible because air everywhere was permeated by nanoscale cameras that
recorded everything everywhere from all perspectives at all times. Looks like
we are approaching that future.

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dzink
Those would be useful for vascular and other medical imaging uses. Search and
rescue bots as well.

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Avery3R
If you scroll down too far the website hijacks your back button

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blauditore
But a camera still needs some room (behind a point hole, and potentially some
lens). At some point this will have higher impact than sensor size, no?

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bovermyer
You know what a cool application of this would be?

Cameras in your bloodstream that create a distributed 3D image of your entire
circulation at once.

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albemuth
What would the light source be?

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Scoundreller
A 50w LED that follows along externally?

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bitrazor123
Bring it on

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quantized1
Yeah !

