Picture a wall that stares back at you. Or a uniform that shows a soldier a 360-degree view of the battlefield. Both scenarios are possible courtesy of a new generation of flexible, translucent fibers developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. These so-called multimaterial fibers can turn incoming light waves into images without the need for a camera lens. And unlike fiber optic cables, they can transmit images that have been captured across their entire length.