3D-Printed Lens Turns Smartphones Into a £1 Microscope to Detect Diseases

Its not really 3d printing if all you are using it for is to place droplets of polydimethylsiloxane onto a plastic slide.

Cool technique, that would be awesome if they commercialized it, man this is a terrible title though. It is not a £1 microscope nor is it 3D printed.

Novel lensmaking technique is combined with 3d printed parts to make microscope addition for smartphone at a cost of less than £1, is presumably the information they were trying to garble.

Agreed, the title is a bit misleading since it's assuming you get a smartphone for free, or that it's something everyone has (not too far from the truth.) It's a £1 microscope accessory for a smartphone.

(If the process is commercialised, we'll probably start seeing lenses of this construction showing up in various toys...)

An actual microscope for 50 cents [1]. No smartphone. It is limited in the things it can do. You can't use it to educate med-students, for example, but it works for the poverty stricken areas perfectly.

[1]:http://www.ted.com/talks/manu_prakash_a_50_cent_microscope_t...

Stuff like this could work great for ARA smartphones.