Bug-eyed lenses may net slimmer cameraphones

For once, a buggy piece of technology might be a good thing. Though there's a physical limit beyond which traditional camera lenses can't get any smaller, compound lenses made from many tiny "micro lenses" — modeled after the faceted structure of a bug's eye — offer an opportunity to shrink a camera lens to one-tenth its normal width while retaining image quality and field of view. Researchers in Germany and Switzerland have developed a prototype of a compound eye-based lens made of dozens of tiny polymer micro-lenses that measures in at 2mm thick. However, there are still size limitations based on the mechanisms used for focus and zoom, but a smaller lens integrated with an optical sensor could still have a chance of eventually making that
RAZR even more anemic.

[Via picturephoning]