Artificial Eye from Elastic Electronics

Technology comes in different types: "cool," "fantastic," and "world changing" (though, admittedly, there are shades in between). It would be difficult to know exactly where to put this one, but I lean toward the last.

[Researchers at] the University of Illinois and Northwestern University have taken artificial vision to the next level by designing a fully artificial eyeball, which could one day "plug in" to the optic nerve for a vision replacement or enhancement.

[Professors Huang, Cummings, and Rogers] teamed up to create a naturally curved array of silicon detectors and electronics that can make in essence a curved camera sensor, which mimics the human eye's design.
...
One critical challenge is that brittle semiconductor materials typically crack under the stress of curving. To overcome this Professor Rogers and Professor Huang created an array of electronics so tiny it was unaffected by the curvature.

Kudos to Drs Huang, Cummings, and Rogers and their grad students.

[Via Jason Mick at Daily Tech]