No more megapixels?

This single pixel camera is still under development and not nearly ready for 'prime time' yet. If the technology ever makes it to the market place it could re-revolutionize the digital photography world. The device sounds like it works similar to the DLP technology in HD TV's. It is an interesting concept. We'll see if it ever comes to fruition.

Single-pixel camera takes on digital
Researchers in the US are developing a single-pixel camera to capture high-quality images without the expense of traditional digital photography.

Being developed by a lab at Rice University in Houston, Texas, the single-pixel camera is designed to tackle what its developers see as the "inefficiencies" of modern digital camera.

It currently resembles an old-fashioned pinhole camera and is the size of a suitcase, but assistant professor of electrical engineering Kevin Kelly told BBC World Service's Digital Planet programme that it is only "the beginning of things."

Inefficiencies

The camera was created, according to Dr Kelly and his colleague Richard Baraniuk, because digital cameras are very wasteful. They require expensive microprocessors and massive battery power to capture an image - most of which will not be used in displaying the picture.

This is because the captured image is compressed, to a jpeg file for example, to make the file size smaller and more convenient to store.

"What is so inefficient about this is that we acquire all these numbers - for example 10 megapixels - only to throw away 80-90% when we do the compression process," explained Dr Baraniuk.

Full story courtesy of BBC News/Technology.