The coolest thing at Intel Developer Forum 2008 came from unexpected quarters.

You would rightfully expect that Intel, the multi-billion-dollar goliath, would have some super-cool tech on display. If you're into talking about datacentre minutiae you may find some of the newer stuff cool.

But the real cool badge, as in the way that a grape stuck in liquid nitrogen is cool, belonged to a little-known company called Refocus Imaging.

Run by Stanford graduate Ren Ng, who looked more akin to a 13-year-old boy than a CEO, Refocus does some really funky magic with digital-camera shots.

Put very, very simply, Refocus uses a plenoptic 'light field' camera that collects hundreds of 'vector fields' from a single exposure. These vector fields allow, after software-based post-processing, the final image to display a number of different depth levels, as if the photographer had taken multiple shots and concentrated on focussing at varying distances.

As an example, a shot of three people, standing at varying distances away from the camera, can be brought into focus, one at a time or all together, with just a touch of a button.

The end result is an image that's wonderfully adaptable, depending upon your needs.

Yes, the plenoptic camera is special and post-processing is intensive, but this one deserves a particular mention, so if the above text has piqued your curiosity, please head on over to here to learn more.

How cool is this, huh?