Making cameras lighter is a function of several things, including new and lighter materials for what makes them heavy. Lenses are high on this list and this week Chris and Adrian take a look at Aluminium Oxynitride, also known as ALON™ or transparent aluminium. With its higher refractive index and its mechanical strength, is it on the way to replace traditional glass with a thinner and lighter scratch-proof alternative? According to a rumor from 2018, at least Zeiss might be looking into it.

Let's revisit GANs on this episode, extending on TFOP ep. 63. Nvidia is at it again with GauGAN (named after French painter Paul Gaugin). This time they present a network that can generate landscapes based on a segmentation map that you draw. Here's a video, a blog post and the paper. Nvidia is planning to release code here.