Look ma, no light! Nanotech is behind ultra-sensitivity of Planet82's "Nano-Cam" sensor

If you're like me, then maybe you've been hearing a lot about nanotechnology but haven't yet seen the benefits of it in any of the products coming to market. Well, here at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, that changed for me when I got a look at what I'm calling Planet82's "Nano-Cam."

Actually, Planet82 doesn't sell cameras. They have the technology -- in this case, the nanotechnology -- that goes into them.  Here at the show, they showed me some prototypes of the sort of cameras that might make use of their nanotechnology imaging sensors, should camera makers choose to include the tech in their wares. In Planet82's case, the company has used nanotechnology to give cameras a degree of nightvision that I've never seen before. Although the images aren't crystal clear, they're clear enough to spot see just about anything in the dark. For example, children or a pet that might be behind your car in a pitch black driveway.

In fact, that was the demonstration that Planet82 was giving here at the show. Company officials took me into a room; one that had no windows and a simulated driveway with two small children in it. To prove how effective Planet82's technology was at capturing an image of the simulated children in a no light, pitch black simulation, we used our own video camera to show how they weren't visible once the lights were turned down. Then, we panned the camera over to a computer display that showed us what the Nano-Cam was seeing. What I saw was quite remarkable and we captured it on tape. Here's the video: