In the latest issue of Nature Communications, the team describes a prototype of the system, which they tested on a stack of papers, each with one letter printed on it. The system was able to correctly identify the letters on the top nine sheets.

Barmak Heshmat, a research scientist at the MIT Media Lab, is joined on the paper by Ramesh Raskar, an associate professor of media arts and sciences; Albert Redo Sanchez, a research specialist in the Camera Culture group at the Media Lab; two of the group’s other members; and by Professor Justin Romberg of the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Alireza Aghasi, Romberg's former postdoctoral fellow who now works with IBM.

Read the MIT press release.