Huge Smartphone Sensors Set To Revolutionize Science

The latest Nokia smartphone, the 1020, comes with a massive 41 megapixel camera. Begging the question, is it a phone or a camera? This is the wrong question. All phones are camera. All cameras are phones (or will be – they will soon all have WiFi or ability to connect to the Internet). The question to me more is what happens when you connect a superior image capture mechanism to the Internet. Equally important, when you put that mega-phone into the razor-thin margin economics of hardware, prices will come down amazing fast. So now the question becomes, what can we do with this super camera?
At 41 megapixels we can get down to extremely granular detail on many things. Granted, the Nokia device here can’t do that. But the key is the sensor size, and that’s what is enormous on this phone as compared to its predecessors. With such a powerful sensor, you can deploy the phone for far greater uses. For example, a phone could now capture microscopic details in water, looking for particulate matter of bugs. A phone could capture very minute differentials in thread weaves or fabric shades to detect counterfeit clothes. A phone camera, mounted on a drone, could capture fine-grained color shifts in forest canopies to measure fire risk or species concentration. The phone becomes the scientific instrument.

We are already seeing this with many of the iPhone and Android accessories that attach cheap sensors to smartphones, delivering distributed scientific and medical information capture. From a smart jacket that is an FDA approved EKG for heart monitoring to water quality sensors, the phone is headed towards becoming an amazingly powerful data capture system to measure and monitor our physical world. This changes everything as what had been previously the province of high-end science becomes affordable to all and real-time, on-demand information capture replaces data captured rarely and at great expense.


Images and the visual realm are probably the richest sources of information. We are adept at building technology to process images, from the adaptive optics software used to correct images from giant telescopes to the nifty shake-correction software that runs in the Nokia phone. And our eyes are the most efficient sensors we have (by most arguments).  41 megapixels, of course, dwarfs the power of our eyes. And now that set of mechanical eyes is in our pocket, connected to the Internet.

Source:Internet

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From Japan, high-definition digital camera features dynamo and solar panel

The SUN&CLOUD digital camera is the first which can be wholly powered by the sun or a built-in dynamo.

We’ve already seen products such as the GravityLight introduce novel ways to generate electricity for devices in regular use. Aimed at consumers looking to reduce their carbon footprint, the SUN&CLOUD digital camera is the first which can be wholly powered by the sun or a built-in dynamo.

Developed by Japan-based Superheadz, the handheld camera can be powered in three ways. Firstly, the battery can be charged simply by placing the device in direct sunlight, requiring 12 hours of sun for a full charge. On days when the weather isn’t as good, users can alternatively use the built-in hand crank to power the camera through a winding motion. Lastly, the camera can be connected to a computer via USB if a quick energy charge is needed. An LED on the side acts as an indicator to show when the device is charging, not charging and fully charged. The camera has an array of functions, including built-in filters, three focus modes and an LED flash.

The SUN&CLOUD could be an environmentally-friendly alternative to typical consumer electronics without forgoing the features usually included on mains-reliant cameras. How else can devices be redesigned with eco-conscious customers in mind?

Website: www.superheadz.com

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Look Lock Lets Your Smartphone And DSLR Go Trigger Happy

While smartphone cameras have improved by leaps and bounds over the years, the amount of quality that it can pack is definitely limited due to the laws of physics. It would make for a decent shooter if you have absolutely no other choice, but a dedicated digital camera will almost always beat the smartphone camera in terms of quality. After all, when you have DSLRs in the picture that offer bigger sensors and larger optics that are more suitable for low light photography, surely a smartphone camera is out of the question.
How about getting the best of both worlds at once? This is where the Look Lock comes in, which is a peripheral that will cling to the DSLR’s hot shoe. The other end of the Look Lock will allow it to hold your smartphone, and the best combo to apply would be to have the smartphone perform a video recording while you snap away on your DSLR, or vice versa, depending on whichever floats your boat. The Look Lock will cost $75 if you want something that will inject a bit of creativity into your photo capturing experience.

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Gooey Joystick Solves Just About All Smartphone Gaming Problems

Smartphone gaming has quickly become a mainstay of our modern living-in-the-future culture. However, it’s not without its problems. Since most phones use a giant screen, putting your fingers on said screen blocks your view of the game. Motion controls are common on smartphone games, but are far from accurate. To the rescue is a research team from Keio University, which developed a gel-based device that converts your front-facing smartphone camera into a three-axis joystick.

Assistant professor Yasutoshi Makino explains that the elastic joystick works thanks to markings on its underside. As the joystick is deformed by the user pushing it with his or her thumb, these markings move together and apart. The front-facing camera, which the joystick sits on top of, observes these movements and translates them into motion on the screen. The technique was first developed in 2003 and was called GelForce.
In addition to not blocking the screen of the phone, the elastic joystick also provides physical feedback to the user. However, the quality of motion depends entirely on the camera’s hardware — its resolution, how fast it refreshes, etc.
As innovative as this device is, I still feel like it misses the point. One of the big advantages of smartphone gaming is that it uses a device that you already carry around all the time. What’s more, smartphones don’t need special controllers or other peripherals to play games — it can do it all thanks to the enormous screens that have become standard since the introduction of the iPhone.
Though gaming on a phone is far from perfect, attempting to solve it with an additional device defeats the purpose of gaming on a smartphone. Also, I have to wonder how many people would prefer using a gooey joystick instead of just swiping their fingers across their phone. That said, it’s an elegant solution to a tricky problem, and one that I am sure we’ll see again in a different form.

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