Coolest Things #2: The Living Picture

This edition of Coolest Things in the Universe “focuses” on a very cool newly-developed technology by some smartypants in Mountain View, CA.

It’s a camera person’s dream… Shoot first, focus later.

Fiction? Nope. But it is being called the start of a “picture revolution.”

The science behind it is pretty cool. Lytro, a company concentrated on the innovation of images, is developing a new kind of camera  based on “light field” technology, something previously considered unimaginable for a standard camera to be able to capture. Light field technology captures all the light rays streaming into the camera, in contrast to standard cameras that just interpret all the light as one light source. This makes it possible for the camera to interpret light hitting items from the immediate foreground to the distant background.

With this technology, they’ve also created a software that allows user to interface with the images in a completely new way. They call it the “living photograph”. (Check it out here!)

With this combination of tools, someone can take a photo (without focusing), load the photo on their computer, and then have the ability and flexibility to focus at any focal length on the image.

Obviously, the implications of this technology are huge.

Users will be able to take photos much faster, have infinite flexibility, and (just as impressively) they’ll be able to do so in much lower light since there is so much light being captured through the sensor. And if that weren’t enough, this technology also works with the rapidly expanding 3D trend, as it’s images can also be 3D images.

Also, makes you wonder when this technology will spread to digital video…

Because of the amazing potential of this super-cool technology, Lytro’s “Living Picture” development has landed one of the titles of “Coolest Things in the Universe”.

Check out this video & see for yourself!

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