Researchers at the Institute of Neuroinformatics in Zurich are using their Silicon Retina (Website down due to disk crash) to perform a balancing trick normally reserved for biological systems. Balancing a pole is one thing, but balancing a tiny pencil is quite another due to the computational speed required, specifically the image processing part. Inspired by the human eye and visual cortex, the team is using a vision system that focuses on individual pixels to produce data quickly that, in turn, controls the motors that moves the base of the pencil. Watch the fascinating video