News

In the face of profound global changes, the Spring-Summer 2026 season is embracing three core themes: Re-fresh, Re-store, and Re-set. These themes are driving textile design towards innovations that address climate challenges through industrial processes and material advancements, revive traditional practices for soil health, and encourage a focus on present realities and bodily awareness. The season’s textile designs are marked by reimagined botanical motifs and a strong return to artisanal techniques and folkloric influences.

Botanical patterns are taking centre stage, with vibrant floral prints designed to awaken the senses. These are not traditional floral arrangements, but rather “Disrupted Gardens of Eden,” infused with human and digital interventions. Expect to see dreamy, almost hallucinatory floral chaos featuring finger smudges, solarized effects, and layered compositions, defying conventional optical principles with free layering of sharp and blurred elements. This trend is exemplified by designs from Longina Phillips in Australia.

A bolder, “Punk Floral” trend offers another interpretation of botanical motifs, blending romance with a wild, untamed spirit. These designs emphasize spontaneity and impulsiveness, contrasting delicate flowers with expressive, bold strokes. Darker colour palettes enhance the dramatic intensity of these floral compositions, as seen in the work of WQ Print Studio from Pakistan and Moonshake Studio from the US.

In contrast, a “Botanical Idyll” trend promotes a more patient and contemplative approach to nature. Botanical patterns here are rendered with harmony and precision, utilizing traditional techniques such as graphite, coloured pencils, and watercolour in vintage-inspired sketches that appear suspended in time. Bolddesign Studio from Portugal and WQ Print Studio from Pakistan showcase this trend. Elena Romero from Spain and Myriam de Faÿ from France also contribute to this style, alongside Studio Paraizo from Brazil.

“Falling Petals” embodies a soft and romantic aesthetic, featuring gentle drifts of petals in pastel and neutral shades. This trend is a pure celebration of floral forms, without wildness, creating delicate and undulating compositions. Techniques such as pastels and felts highlight charming imperfections, offering a poetic, human interpretation of nature. Designers like Mari Tsuji and Claire Méha from France, Bureaux Bo from GE, and Amélie Broddes from France are among those exploring this delicate style.

Beyond traditional flora, “Plantasia” introduces a hybrid bestiary. This trend juxtaposes elements of nature, merging wild animals with bark and foliage in surprising and sensuous fusions, often in warm tones. Minerals and shell-like textures are also incorporated, adding another layer of complexity. Mari Tsuji from France, Bolddesign Studio from Portugal, Season Paper Studio from France, and Moonshake Studio from the US are exploring these unique plant-animal combinations.

“Old Wardrobe” patterns bring a passionate reinterpretation of ancient textiles, featuring meticulously crafted designs. Ultra-fine lines evoke the spirit of upholstery, tapestries, and wallpaper from bygone eras. Ikigaïbloom from France and Estudio Rocha from Brazil are creating designs in this vein. Studio Paraizo from Brazil and Alicia Villodres Patterns from Spain also contribute to this trend, drawing inspiration from historical textiles.

Finally, the “Artisanal Stitch” trend takes an embroidery-inspired approach to prints, celebrating ancestral craftsmanship. Surfaces are embellished with colourful floral motifs, blurring the lines between photographic embroidery and trompe-l’œil cross-stitch effects, adding a tangible materiality to the prints. Estudio Rocha and Lúdico Estampas from Brazil, Longina Phillips from Australia, and Aqui Design E.U from Australia present designs that capture this handcrafted embroidery aesthetic.

Explore further insights into the Spring/Summer 26 season’s design directions by discovering more decodings online.

Source link

Scientists have developed a novel artificial intelligence algorithm called DeepLens that can automatically design optical lenses, marking a significant leap forward in the field of optical engineering. Traditional lens design has been a manual and iterative process, often relying on existing designs and human intuition. Automated methods have struggled due to the complexity of the design space, often getting stuck in suboptimal solutions.

The DeepLens method, developed by researchers at King Abdullah University of Science & Technology, overcomes these limitations by using deep learning and differentiable ray tracing. Starting from simple flat surfaces, the AI can independently create lens designs that are competitive with, and in some cases surpass, conventional designs, particularly in minimizing image distortions.

A key innovation is the implementation of “curriculum learning,” inspired by teaching methods. The algorithm gradually increases the complexity of the design task, starting with simpler lens configurations and progressively expanding the aperture and field of view. This approach helps the AI navigate the complex design space and avoid getting trapped in inferior solutions. The system also incorporates constraints to prevent the creation of impractical lens shapes.

Beyond conventional lenses, DeepLens has also successfully designed an extended depth-of-field (EDoF) lens. This type of lens maintains image sharpness across a wide range of distances. The researchers demonstrated an EDoF lens with a compact size, wide field of view, and a fast aperture (small F-number), a combination that holds great promise for advancements in mobile phone camera technology. The EDoF lens designed by DeepLens covers focus ranges from as close as 10 centimeters to 10 meters.

The developers emphasize that DeepLens demonstrates the power of AI in revolutionizing optical design, particularly for systems using refractive lenses, where light behavior can be accurately simulated. To promote further innovation, they have released an open-source software framework based on DeepLens, enabling researchers and engineers to design and optimize their own optical systems using deep learning techniques. This new approach, leveraging the computational speed of GPUs and the optimization capabilities of deep learning, is expected to pave the way for the next generation of optical designs.

Source link

Network software automation, reminiscent of the software-defined networking (SDN) era a decade ago, is gaining renewed momentum in the optical networking industry. While SDN promised simpler, more efficient, and flexible networks with cost savings and improved service levels, its adoption in optical networking has been slower than anticipated. However, recent developments, particularly the rise of open optical networking, are acting as catalysts for widespread network automation.

Open optical networking enables communication service providers (CSPs) to utilize equipment from multiple vendors, fostering innovation and improving network economics. Supply chain vulnerabilities highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic underscored the importance of vendor diversity. The availability of 400G ZR/ZR+/XR coherent optical pluggables further drives this trend, allowing direct deployment in routers and bypassing traditional transponders, reducing network costs in IP over DWDM (IPoDWDM) architectures.

Managing these multi-vendor open optical networks necessitates a shift in approach. Vendor-agnostic software automation solutions, building upon SDN principles, are emerging as the answer to operational complexities. These solutions, termed optical domain controllers, manage network elements consistently across vendors, employing common data models and standardized interfaces. They control transponders, pluggables, and optical line systems, abstracting vendor-specific details and offering unified control via northbound APIs for back-office systems and automation applications.

Optical domain controllers facilitate faster bandwidth delivery and more flexible services for CSPs. They also address the need for simplified network operations and help navigate the challenges of an aging workforce in the industry. Key functionalities include automated network discovery, service visualization, performance monitoring, and fault isolation across multi-vendor environments. These controllers also enable automated service creation, including complex Layer 0 provisioning, and support real-time service allocation based on network resource status. Path computation and performance validation capabilities further enhance service reliability through traffic redirection and recovery mechanisms.

Integration with back-office systems allows for workflow automation and business process optimization. Moreover, optical domain controllers empower advanced applications leveraging network data analytics and machine learning. By analyzing telemetry data, CSPs can gain actionable insights to dynamically optimize network capacity, performance, and resilience, ultimately expanding service offerings and meeting growing customer demands.

The current generation of software automation solutions for open optical networks realizes the long-held promises of SDN. They simplify operations, enable CSPs to leverage hardware flexibility and programmability fully, embrace network diversity, and accelerate innovation. These solutions support a wide range of applications, from streamlining network operations to integrating with business processes, and utilizing data-driven insights to enhance network performance, optimize investments, and create new value for CSPs.

Source link

ZEISS Industrial Quality Solutions has launched ZEISS INSPECT, a new software tailored for metrology applications. The software is designed to inspect optical 3D and x-ray data, incorporating features to facilitate automated processes. ZEISS INSPECT offers customization options through apps available in the ZEISS Quality Software Store, and it also includes a built-in Python interface for further personalization. The software is intended to enhance quality inspection workflows within industrial settings.

Source link

SILMO is holding its annual Optical Design Contest, reinforcing its dedication to fostering expertise, supporting the optical industry, and encouraging innovation. The competition is designed to be a launchpad for emerging talent, challenging design students globally to push creative boundaries within eyewear design.

This year’s contest, themed “Superhero Glasses,” calls for participants to design innovative eyewear that transcends basic functionality. Students are tasked with creating frames that enhance vision and broaden perception, transform sight and the surrounding environment, and redefine eyewear as a powerful technology exceeding its role as a simple health aid. Designs should be bold and inventive, turning eyeglasses into tools for transformation and reinvention of both vision and the world around us.

Presiding over the jury is internationally recognized Belgian designer and interior architect Michel Penneman, known for his innovative hotel designs and expertise in architectural storytelling and color. Penneman’s eclectic and conceptual approach, with a focus on light and transparency, will guide the evaluation process.

The contest is open to students in their third, fourth, or fifth year of design programs. Submissions, which can be individual or team projects, must be entered via the dedicated platform by June 16, 2025. Designs will be evaluated based on innovation, functional relevance, responsible design principles, and technical feasibility. Finalists will be announced in July 2025, and their prototypes will be showcased at SILMO Paris 2025.

The winner will receive a €10,000 prize, equally divided between the student(s) and their educational institution. Furthermore, the winning design will be featured at SILMO Paris 2026.

Key dates for the contest are: June 16, 2025, for the entry deadline; July 2025 for the announcement of nominees; and September 26 for the prize ceremony at the SILMO Paris show.

Source link

Google has announced the release of PaliGemma 2, a new family of vision-language models. Launched on December 5th, PaliGemma 2 is the successor to the initial PaliGemma model, which was the first vision-language model in the Gemma family, released seven months prior. Built upon Gemma 2, these models are designed to understand and interact with visual information. According to Google, PaliGemma 2 is intended to simplify the integration of advanced vision-language capabilities into applications for developers. The new models offer improved captioning features, capable of identifying emotions and actions depicted in images. PaliGemma 2 provides scalable performance, adaptable to various tasks through different model sizes—3B, 10B, and 28B parameters—and resolutions of 224px, 448px, and 896px. The models also feature long captioning, enabling the generation of detailed and context-aware captions that go beyond simple object recognition to describe actions, emotions, and the story within an image.

Source link

Scientists have developed a new artificial intelligence framework called XLuminA that dramatically accelerates the discovery of advanced microscopy techniques. The framework, created by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL), addresses the challenge of the overwhelming number of potential optical configurations for microscopy, a complexity that can hinder traditional human-led discovery.

Optical microscopy is crucial in biological sciences, and super-resolution methods have overcome the diffraction limit of light, enabling the visualization of minute cellular structures. However, designing new microscopy techniques has been traditionally reliant on human intuition, which researchers argue may not be sufficient given the vast possibilities. For example, even a simple optical system with just ten components from five types could yield over 100 million configurations.

XLuminA functions as an AI-driven optics simulator capable of autonomously evaluating a wide range of optical configurations. Its key advantage is efficiency, performing design assessments 10,000 times faster than conventional computational methods. Researchers validated XLuminA by demonstrating its ability to independently rediscover established microscopy techniques, including image magnification, STED microscopy, and super-resolution using optical vortices.

In a significant demonstration of its discovery potential, XLuminA synthesized a novel optical design by combining the principles of STED microscopy and optical vortex techniques. This new design is not only previously unreported but also outperforms the individual techniques it is based upon.

The creators of XLuminA, from the “Artificial Scientist Lab” and the “Physical Glycoscience” research group at MPL, believe this framework marks a crucial step towards AI-assisted discovery in super-resolution microscopy. They anticipate XLuminA will accelerate the development of new microscopy designs with unprecedented capabilities, leading to deeper insights into cell biology. The modularity of the framework allows for adaptation to various microscopy methods and can be utilized by other research teams for interdisciplinary collaborations. Future developments will incorporate more complex optical phenomena, further expanding the framework’s simulation capabilities.

Source link

The global optical fiber monitoring market is poised for significant expansion, projected to reach USD 5.1 billion by 2034, up from USD 950 million in 2024. This represents a robust compound annual growth rate of 18.30% over the next decade, according to a new report.

Currently, North America dominates the market, holding over 45% of the share in 2024, with a revenue of USD 429.4 million. Within North America, the United States is the leading contributor, generating USD 326.4 million and expected to maintain a strong growth trajectory at a CAGR of 18.5%.

The surge in market value is attributed to the increasing demand for reliable, high-speed internet and data transmission. Optical fiber monitoring, which employs advanced technology to assess and manage fiber optic network performance, is becoming crucial for ensuring seamless operation. This process involves using sensors and analytical tools to provide real-time data on fiber conditions, thus preventing disruptions and enhancing network reliability.

ключевым драйверам рынка являются widespread adoption of fiber optics in telecommunications, data centers, and enterprise networks. The increasing complexity of these networks, coupled with the rising reliance on high-speed data, necessitates advanced monitoring solutions. Industry key players are actively developing innovative tools, including real-time monitoring and predictive maintenance systems, to maintain network integrity.

Distributed Fiber Optic Sensing (DFOS) technology currently leads the technology segment with a 52.8% market share, owing to its ability to continuously monitor fiber optic cables across extensive distances. Monitoring devices constitute the largest component segment, holding 46.2% of the market in 2024, reflecting their critical role in detecting and managing network performance. Telecommunications remains the primary application sector, accounting for 27.4% of the market.

North America’s leading market position is bolstered by substantial investments in telecommunications infrastructure and the adoption of cutting-edge technologies, especially in the United States. Government initiatives aimed at improving digital infrastructure further support growth in the region. In terms of market segmentation, monitoring devices are projected to hold a substantial 64.7% share in 2024, emphasizing their importance in maintaining network reliability. Software components are also gaining traction, expected to represent nearly 30% of the market by 2030, highlighting the increasing importance of integrated software solutions.

The expansion of fiber optic networks globally is a significant factor driving market growth. The global fiber footprint increased by approximately 15% between 2018 and 2020, reaching 480 million fiber kilometers, underscoring the growing need for effective monitoring solutions.

While the market is experiencing rapid growth, high implementation and maintenance costs pose a restraint, particularly for smaller organizations. However, significant growth opportunities exist in emerging markets and through technological advancements, such as the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning into monitoring systems, enabling predictive maintenance and improved network management efficiency. Leading companies in this sector include EXFO Inc., VIAVI Solutions Inc., and Yokogawa Electric Corporation, all actively innovating and expanding their product offerings to meet the rising demand for optical fiber monitoring solutions. Recent industry developments include EXFO’s launch of AI-powered monitoring solutions and VIAVI’s acquisition of a distributed fiber optic sensing technology provider, demonstrating the ongoing advancements and competitive landscape of the optical fiber monitoring market.

Source link