A team of Stanford researchers, led by scientist Abbas El Gamal and including researchers Keith Fife and Phillip Wong, are developing a new semiconductor camera sensor with thousands of individual lens elements which can be mass-produced cheaply. The aim: to create sophisticated three-dimensional digital scans quickly. But they didn't do it so that you could fashion a really bitchin' avatar in Second Life. Try "facial recognition for security purposes." Because the current crop of surveillance cameras and robots aren't very good at recognizing people or estimating depth, and if you want to build a mechanized assassin, the thing needs to be able to tell the difference between Kim Jong Il and Hu Jintao or the diplomatic corps is going to have hell to pay. True, there are peaceful applications for such technology. But how about we take a look at where the El Gamal Research Group gets its funding from?