re:Camera on a chip
Jonathan Somers (jons@mindspring.com)
Tue, 27 May 1997 21:25:59 -0400
I have to wonder if the author (Andrew Pollack - not Irfan) misunderstood
the significance. The only real advantages of the CMOS process are (1)
economy of scale and (2) power consumption. The article ignores one of the
bulkiest components (and the one which is most essential to image quality)
- the optics. Sure, we can build a camera into a shirt button... but that
can be done today using traditional CCD imagers too. Without a decent lens
and a sufficient volume of light, the image quality is unacceptable for
anything but government work...
Still an exciting development from a consumer products standpoint though.
BTW did I miss something - the "student highlighter that takes pictures" is
called a hand scanner, isn't it?
- Jonathan