Varioptic liquid lenses now shipping in SnakeCam webcam

We've been hearing about how Varioptic's liquid camera lenses would revolutionize cellphones for a while now, so it's a little bit surprising to see the oil-and-water optics pop up in Akkord Electronics' el cheapo SnakeCam webcams first. The 1.3 megapixel S1300 and 2.0 megapixel S2000 cams feature a Varioptic Arctic 416 lens, as well as bendy mount, built-in microphone, and CMOS sensor, and will sell for just $20 per unit -- but we'd imagine that whoever ends up rebranding these will mark that up a bit.

[wilcoholic @ Jun 25th 2008 2:23PM]

Wow thats really cheap but I cant imagine any purposes for such a device.

[JC @ Jun 25th 2008 2:26PM]

well, it's a webcam, so I imagine it would be used for porn

[Xee @ Jun 25th 2008 2:31PM]

Colonoscopy?

[Shinigami @ Jun 25th 2008 2:31PM]

How about technology testing? xD

[Lowest Ranked @ Jun 25th 2008 2:36PM]

Any toy can become an adult toy:

Location, Location, Location!

[Abhinav @ Jun 25th 2008 2:36PM]

Jus wait till apple pops one of these into a MacBook and charges an extra $250 for it...

[Beddoes @ Jun 25th 2008 2:30PM]

Liquid Snake Cam? MGS4 FTW!

[Lowest Ranked @ Jun 25th 2008 2:38PM]

After many years, our hero Snake has become soft overtime; his next game Metal Gear Liquid, says it all.

[Gibson @ Jun 26th 2008 10:51AM]

Glad someone else was thinking this! :D

[applefan @ Jun 25th 2008 2:30PM]

www.badgerbadgerbadger.com

Snake! lol

[Shinigami @ Jun 25th 2008 2:31PM]

Thats some great news to me - a start! I hope to see these kinds of lenses in phones next year (mobile phones first, cell phones later, meaning EU first, USA later :) ). But I certainly hope this will boost auto-focus speed of all cameras to Motorola ZN5's speed (less than a second to focus), as well as make phones thinner with larger sensors (8mp SE C905 is around 19mm thick, kind of too much).

[jfjb @ Jun 25th 2008 2:47PM]

how long is the neck of that thing?

[Lowest Ranked @ Jun 25th 2008 2:54PM]

Judging by the USB plug I'd say roughly 12 inches.

Which is exactly 12 times longer than my.... nevermind.

[Frankenstein Black @ Jun 25th 2008 4:46PM]

Wow! I am sooo sorry... Hey screw those judgmental chicks. Head up. Don't let them get you down...

[Christian @ Jun 25th 2008 3:11PM]

wait where's the link for purchase now?

That's still cheap for any type of web cam!

[required @ Jun 25th 2008 3:43PM]

any sample oil-and-water imagery?

[neihprome @ Jun 25th 2008 4:27PM]

Reminds me of the binoculars from Dune.

[Harry Wagstaff @ Jun 25th 2008 6:31PM]

A BENDY mount? Where do I sign up?