A patent was recently granted to Apple describing how a spherical image sensor can be used to design a very compact camera module. The sensor is spherically curved and eliminates the need to correct for curvature of field, meaning a simpler, brighter and ultimately smaller lens design can be used. Read more
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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Global tech giant Google could be joining the camera business if a patent it was awarded this month is anything to go by. Filed in June 2014 and just approved on the 12th January this year, the patent issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office is for a design for a folding camera that’s hinged in the middle like a clamshell mobile phone. The design appears to allow the camera to stand upright on its own, which presents a great deal of stability and also the ability to shoot selfies. It isn’t clear from the drawings whether the camera’s screen is inside the fold or on the back outer surface, but the significant bulge of the lens housing suggests the camera has a wide ranging zoom or high class optics.
The design allows the camera to open out so that its backside outer cover/screen can be brought to face in the same direction as the lens, with the front and back of the device creating one long flush surface, other than a gutter in the fold.
The patent might, of course, come to nothing, but it isn’t inconceivable that the company that seems to be into everything should want to create a standalone camera too. We will have to wait and see, but in the meantime can enjoy a little speculation – the patent is good for 14 years.
Do you think the camera will come to life or would Google be crazy to produce it? Let us know in the comments.
For more information visit the US Patents and Trademarks office website.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Looking at a new Apple patent that has recently surfaced, it appears we might see a dual-camera setup in future iPhone generations. The design uses two camera modules, one with a wide-angle lens and another with a longer focal length. Throw some Apple software wizardry into the mix and you get yourself a smartphone zoom lens that should get close in quality to fully optical zooms and much better than existing digital zooms. Read more
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Patent spotting site Patentlyaple has discovered an Apple patent application titled “Parallax Depth Rendering” which describes a methodology for rendering images and video that, when viewed on a standard 2D display, give the impression of showing a 3D view. Click through for more details
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Olympus has patented a technology that records polarization information on the sensor itself, giving the effect of a polarizing filter but without the light cost. The patent is for a two-layer sensor that records color and brightness information on the top layer, just like a conventional sensor, but then has a second layer that captures information about the polarization of the light arriving at the camera. Read more
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]
The creators of the world’s first working hoverboard have turned their sights toward larger-scale projects, patenting a three-part hovering foundation system to defend houses in earthquake- and flood-prone areas facing threats from natural disasters. The basic idea: decouple buildings from the ground temporarily, isolating them from unwanted movement happening below and around them.
Arx Pax, based in Silicon Valley and the creators of the Hendo Hoverboard using Magnetic Field Architecture (MFA), designed this new approach to floating homes during emergencies, using a buffer medium over a construction platform. Their physical technologies will be connected to ShakeAlert, an automatic warning software developed in part by the University of California, Berkeley and the U.S. Geological Survey.
“The ShakeAlert program aligns well with our long-term vision,” said Greg Henderson, co-founder and CEO at Arx Pax. “Weaving ShakeAlert into our MFA seismic isolation solution provides a valuable new tool to architects, engineers, and developers who are looking for a better way to build in areas affected by earthquakes. Our goal is to eliminate structural movement by pinpointing the exact time an object or building’s ‘landing gear’ should retract and activate the hover engines.”
Currently, many large buildings already have countermeasures to protect them from strong winds or earthquake forces, but few small structures can afford similar protections. Arx Pax hopes to make similar approaches cost-effective for individual houses and lower buildings in general, raising them up in the face of floodwaters or shaking ground.
In addition to helping homeowners, Arx Pax sees applications for this technology for places including surgical operating rooms where stability is essential or laboratories, server farms and other spaces with sensitively calibrated equipment.
Twenty-five years after ‘Back to the Future’ convinced an entire generation that we’d soon be able to zoom around the city on wheel-less …
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Playful yet thought-provoking, this project asks: what do we do with small leftover spaces in cities … particularly in urban areas where even a few …
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A white box seems to hover in mid-air in the middle of the forest, with no visible supports suspending it from adjacent trees. This structure isn’t a …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]
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Olympus and Pentax have introduced cameras with sensor-shift-driven resolution modes designed to maximize the amount of information collected by their sensors. Apple has also patented a similar system, using an optical image stabilization system to create and combine multiple exposures into a higher resolution image. Read more
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
GoPro has been granted a patent for a small square camera housing, which eschews the rectangular shape its cameras have taken thus far in favor of something resembling the Polaroid Cube. According to the patent, which was recently published by the USPTO, the square design would allow for additional mounting options, with every orientation being the same. Read more
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
It appears we can expect an increased interchange of technologies between imaging giant Canon and software maker Microsoft in the near future, thanks to to a patent agreement that was signed by the two parties on Wednesday. Though the brief statement issued by Microsoft doesn’t reveal much, it appears that Canon imaging technology may be used in future Lumia smartphones made by Nokia. Learn more
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
It appears we can expect an increased interchange of technologies between imaging giant Canon and software maker Microsoft in the near future, thanks to to a patent agreement that was signed by the two parties on Wednesday. Though the brief statement issued by Microsoft doesn’t reveal much, it appears that Canon imaging technology may be used in future Lumia smartphones made by Nokia. Learn more
related news: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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