* Astronomy

The Lytro focus-free digital camera

Lytro is the brainchild of Dr. Ren Ng, a Stanford Ph.D whose dissertation on light-field technology five years ago was showered with awards. Now, with the help of $50 million in funding, most of it from Andreesen Horowitz, Ng has built a company that's preparing to launch a focus-free digital camera later this year.
The basic premise of Lytro's technology is pretty simple: the camera captures all the information it possibly can about the field of light in front of it. You then get a digital photo that is adjustable in an almost infinite number of ways. You can focus anywhere in the picture, change the light levels - and presuming you're using a device with a 3-D ready screen - even create a picture you can tilt and shift in three dimensions.
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