The jelly-like thing you see here is called GelSight. It’s a synthetic rubber substance that can measure and visualise even microscopic surfaces, and it promises to revolutionise both forensics and medicine after some more study.
GelSight was originally used to give robots a sense of touch. How it works is you simply apply it to any surface that needs investigating. GelSight will produce a 3D, highly detailed image of the surface it’s measuring, surfaces that would be more difficult to view with more expensive means.
Returning to Batman, it’s easy to imagine him having this in his arsenal. All he’d have to do is stick the substance on a surface likely to have fingerprints. The 3D print models could then be beamed back to Oracle or the GPD, and then scanned for known crooks in the Gotham underworld. This is totally applicable in the real world. [FastCompany via Engadget]