How did they know where to go to find Bin Laden? They had pictures — in real time — from a special camera that can see things that the human eye can never see. Put simply, where people can only see color through visible light in three bands – red, green and blue, hyperspectral imaging divides the spectrum into dozens or hundreds of bands, covering a wide range of wavelengths of the electromagnetic field. The result: The possible combinations of wavelengths are infinite and discoverable in ways that can detect and identify everything from a blade of grass to a toxic gas leak. …

I met Alex Hegyi, one of MIT’s 2016 “Innovators Under 35,” at a conference held MIT’s Media Lab. He said his goal was to make hyperspectral technology “cheaper than anything that’s out there and also small enough to fit inside a cellphone. That could dramatically change the way just about anyone looks at the world.” Here are a few of those changes, according to Hegyi:

* In agriculture, you could look at your crops and see if they need more or less water, more or less fertilizer, and predict crop yields.
* In medicine, you could look at your skin and actually see tissue oxygenation, or look at a mole and see if it’s cancerous.
* In defense, you could easily spot camouflaged targets.