From what I have seen and known I think Stanford is one of the universities which is majorly researching on imagery and photography. Keith Fife and his team at Stanford have developed a new technology which is called multi-aperture image sensor.

Instead of taking one big picture this technology breaks the entire picture into small 16×16 patches which are overlapping each other, this is called subarrays. The way it works is that the sensor is measures the distance of each patch from lens to object and arrange accordingly.

Attempts have been made in the past to achieve 3D imagery or stereoscopic imaging and the following image shows one of the cameras developed few years ago to take 3D Images. The technology is developed by a company called 3D World and is available in the market now. Click here to visit the product page.

Another attempt was made by Adobe which is working on a similar technology. Click on the following link to view the video. AudioBlog.fr
 
Few months ago I watched a video on Scoble Show based on research of Marc Levoy, a professor at Stanford University.  I was amazed at the things he demonstrated during the interview and it shows the kind of technology and features we can expect to see on our cameras in the future.

Resources:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereoscopy
• http://home.comcast.net/~jlballou/stereoaerial/sfmcc.html (examples of 3D Images)
  
• http://isl.stanford.edu/groups/elgamal/people/kfife/

Excited about the future of Photography? Me too!

3DV Systems have developed a technology which measures the depth of the objects in real time. This technology enables applications to capture object shapes in dynamically defined 3D Space. 

What this technology means to a common man? This means the future of interacting with electronics is about to become really easy and effortless. We won’t require and IR enabled remote controls because the gadgets and electronics will begin to recognize your hand gestures and act accordingly.

This is what the company has to say about the future of the technology they have invented.

“3DV is currently focused on bringing the vision of next generation immersive man-machine interface come true in the worlds of gaming and web-conferencing, through introducing outstanding gesture recognition and personalization capabilities. At the same time, the company offers breakthrough solutions for the automotive-safety, security and robotics markets, based on the capability to detect objects (e.g. faces) at high precision and in changing environments.

Looking ahead, we see our video imaging technology playing a key role in shaping the interface of next-generation mobile devices and in the "Digital Home".”

This technology was also showcased at the CES in Las Vegas, However the release date and the pricing of the camera was not reveled. I have written to the team inquiring about the product, will update the post once I have more information.

Watch the following video to see the camera in action.

The future is bright!

When I read about this product, it reminded of a secret agent like Sherlock Holmes and a techy hero like James Bond.
A best gadget to spy if you are a secret agent or aspire to be one and costs just 170$.

This is a hi tech digital camera that does not look like a camera but a cigarette lighter!
The best part being its capacity of holding up to 300 images.

It has almost all the features that any digital camera does :

Voice recording
Video recording with sound and
LiteSync technology which means that it enhances indoor lighting in low-light conditions.

To know the specifications, click here.