Biography

Leo is a physicist, a futurist, and an inventor with a career in applied research and product development.  He has designed a nuclear reactor core, a submarine life-support system, a rifle scope, a periscope, a ship-based helicopter landing system, lenses, sensors, machine vision systems, laser systems, and the optics for a utility-scale concentrated solar power system.  Leo has investigated nuclear reactor accident scenarios, plastic waste recycling, surface plasmons, adaptive optics, and femtosecond-laser-created nano-structures.  His government designs are in service in 26 countries.  Leo’s commercial work has resulted in 49 US patents and can be found in glass plants and breweries, in silicon fabs and on electronic assembly systems, on iPads and iPhones, and in the Amazon Fire Phone.  After a brief sabbatical as a Fellow of Research at GoPro, Leo is back at Amazon creating vision systems for new applications.

When Smart Cameras Become Ubiquitous

Competition in smart-phone features has spurred phenomenal development in both camera technology and processor technology; each has become significantly smaller, cheaper and powerful in the past few years while consuming less power. Bringing these two technologies together in devices other than cell phones is going to usher in new era of extremely compact, cheap and capable smart cameras that will be integrated into a variety of products and thus into our day-to-day lives. From biometric security to reading moods to privacy concerns, the potential applications and pitfalls of ubiquitous smart cameras are examined along with some proposed solutions to the pitfalls. Specific predictions are made for 5, 10, and 15 years into the future.