Check out this video in which Adobe engineers debut some much rumored hardware designed to interface with a future version of Photoshop (and, perhaps, other of our favorite Adobe apps?) to provide persective and depth of field in post.
Not only is it a stunning demo, such a lens might not require mechanical controls for changing focus or aperture; the lenses are the fixed focus type found in your point and shoot camera.
It’s possible to recreate depth of field in post, or do without it entirely, Gregg Toland-style (but since we all know that DOF is crucial to a cinematic look, that ability may be more useful for 3D artists who need that kind of image fidelity).
Adobe has vastly increased its investment in research and development so this is hardly the last innovation we’re likely to see, particularly in cases where the proof of concept comes from academia.