CellphoneCameras
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Digicam tech goes wafer-thin, cellphones cheer
It's kinda exciting when new tech comes along that promises a digital camera chip size reduction of 50 percent and cost reduction of 30 percent. That's precisely what has been announced from Tessera Technologies, and cellphone makers worldwide will join in the glee in the near future if they'll be able to slave even more size off of teeny, tiny slim sliders and clamshells. According to Tessera's OptiML product announcement, the "simultaneous manufacturing" allows for the cost and size reduction while still allowing for digital optical zooming and auto-focus, all without any moving parts. Derek Zoolander would be proud.
FotoNation embeds red-eye reduction for that cellphone cam
Are you that avid cellphone cam user who snatches a dozen nocturnal photos a day to wirelessly upload to that Flickr or other photo blog account? If you use the measly flash found on most cellphone cams these days, dontcha' wish there was a way to have that nasty red-eye effect taken out before your precious photos ended up on the global net of photos? It's a pity when you have to download that sweet pic into PhotoShop, Picasa or some other app just to wipe that red-eye out. That concern will be a non-issue to many cellphone cam users shortly if FotoNation gets its way. The online imaging company has announced its "Red-Eye Correction Technology" (snazzy name, eh?) it hopes will be soon embedded into the firmware of most cellphones.
Kodak launches image printing service for cellphone cameras
Although there are more and more embedded cameras in cellphones these days with PictBridge compatibility for local printing at your friendly CVS or Kmart, Kodak wants you to send them that nicer digital picture from that 2 megapixel shooter for processing and printing. Kodak is one of the first to say that the increasing image quality of digicams in cellphones is opening up a new market, although we've been waiting for a while, you know. Kodak's partnership with Exclaim will allow its "Mobile Link" service -- which Kodak describes as very near to its Easyshare system -- to find its way to CDMA handsets with Brew compatibility. In the U.S., you'll most likely be stuck with Verizon Wireless, the largest CDMA carrier with that combination. For all others, you're out of luck for now. We do find it strange that both Verizon and Sprint are referenced in the announcement when Sprint's phones use Java and not Brew. The price for Kodak's service will be $4 per month.
Tears are shed on the cameraphone's history
We actually shed a few tears in reading a recent feature about the all-too-recent history of the ubiquitous cameraphone. Yes -- it's hard to find even a mid-tier wireless handset these days without a simple VGA sensor on board, even though most entry-level cellys don't have any cam at all. Where have we come from the days of the Sony Ericsson T610 to the Sanyo SCP-5300 -- remember those early cameraphones? Image quality has steadily (but slowly) improved and now your camera (at least one of them) is with you at all times -- and all facets of life are instantly photographable and can be pumped to the net right from the handset. Good times.
