Engineers at Columbia University have devised a theory for a flexible camera. They suggest its applications are fairly endless; wrap them around vehicles, street lamps — anything. The concept is also that the camera could be as small as a credit card and would bend and flex to change the field of view.

Such bending and flexing would present several issues. The major one being that information gaps would occur as the camera fans open. However, the team thinks they have come up with a solution they’re calling an elastic lens array “where the focal length of each lens adapts to the local curvature of the array”.

Check out the video below for a full explanation and share your thoughts in the comments below.