Computational Science & Engineering

Insect eye-inspired camera captures wide view with no distortion

When praying mantises, dragonflies, ants and other insects peer out at the world, their bulging, compound eyes allow them to see an incredibly wide field of view with an almost infinite depth of field.

Imitating the functionality of an insect eye — which is really a collection of many tinier eyes, known as ommatidia — in a camera has been a long sought-after goal for engineers. Now, camera lenses with wide fields of view, such as fisheye lenses, create distortion around the edges of the image.

Next-generation Wi-Fi service available on campus buses

CU-Boulder researchers are helping develop the next generation of the Internet—a more mobile version—and the campus’ Office of Information Technology is using this new technology to provide mobile wireless Internet service on campus buses.

The university recently used the WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) wireless protocol to extend its wireless network to the campus buses running between the main Boulder campus and student residence halls at Williams Village, located about a mile to the east.

Advancing the uses of laser technology

CU-Boulder professors Margaret Murnane and Henry Kapteyn lead an interdisciplinary research group at JILA, a joint institute of the university and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where they have made groundbreaking strides in laser science by developing new ultra-fast lasers and X-ray sources for experiments in physics, chemistry, materials science, and engineering. Their pioneering research resulted in the development of ultra-fast optical and coherent soft X-ray sources.

Saving lives with online communications

A new approach to social media called “Tweak the Tweet,” conceived by CU-Boulder graduate student Kate Starbird and deployed by members of CU’s Project EPIC research group and colleagues around the nation, helped Haiti relief efforts by providing standardized syntax for Twitter communications.

Through consistent use of specially placed keywords, or “hashtags,” in Twitter posts to communicate critical information such as location, status, and road conditions, the “Tweak the Tweet” approach made information computationally easier to extract and collate.

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