Designer Mac Funamizu has created a gadget showing what he thinks the future holds for mobile devices. The “near” future, he claims. It includes a touch screen, built-in camera, scanner, WiFi, Google Maps and Google search support, and even an image search, all in a tiny and beautiful package.

Although the concept is pretty far out for today’s technology, it might indeed be possible sometime in the future, and it would probably be one of the most useful gadgets we own.

The device would be able to give you all sorts of information about what you are looking at through its screen. Simply touch the thing you want to know about – be it a word in a book, a floor on a building, a car, or even some food – and the definition pops up right next to it on the screen.

We love the idea and can only hope that technology will some day allow it to become a reality. This gadget could be tech equivalent of a Swiss Army Knife, especially if someone can build a cell phone into it as well. More pictures after the jump. Read more »

Researchers at Stanford University have invented a chip which can take pictures in 3D. Besides being able to reassemble the 3D image into a normal 2D photograph that we all know and love, the researchers can also figure out distances of objects in the photo.

The chip works by overlapping small 16×16-pixel patches, called subarrays, each hiding under its own lens. After a photo is taken, special software then analyzes it looking for small location differences for the same element in different patches. Based on this information the software is able to extrapolate the distance from one object to another at the time the photo was taken. Read more »

Canon and Casio have been looking into Microsoft’s JPEG XR format recently, and have decided that it makes a good middle ground between regular JPEG and camera RAW. The format has a much higher quality than JPEG, in addition to better compression. It allows a camera to fire off a lot of high quality shots quickly, without needing the horsepower to handle large RAW images.

This will undoubtedly create a generaton of cheaper, better cameras, and we love to see cheaper and better in the same sentence.

Kodak has announced a new kind of image sensor that could be the start of a new age of camera phone pictures. The sensor is small enough for the tiniest of cameras, and delivers 5 megapixel images in addition to being capable of shooting 720p high definition video at 30 fps (pretty impressive!). Kodak claims the sensor can even deliver good quality pictures in very minimal lighting.

The key technology that has made this new sensor a reality is a completely re-engineered CMOS sensor. Kodak says that the new sensor can finally compete with the sensors of digital cameras. The company is so confident of the sensor’s capabilities that it’s showing them off to cell phone manufacturers next week at Mobile World Congress.

This is an amazing advancement in cell phone camera technology. We can’t wait until these cameras start showing up in every phone so we can finally get rid of our digital cameras.

Toyota is hoping to help to prevent accidents with its latest addition to some of its cars, an eye-monitoring system. It includes a camera mounted on the dash near the steering wheel which constantly monitors a driver’s eyes. If it senses that the eyes are not “properly open,” the system would alert the driver. It would also sense imminent collisions, helping it decide how and when to tell the driver to wake up.

The system would first be installed on Japanese Toyotas, with no word on if or when it would make it Stateside. However, seeing as this can only benefit our cars, expect to see it soon after its Japan release. Graphic after the jump. Read more »

Here comes another nifty gadget from Yanko Design. Although just a concept, this Flying Stick camera seems very feasible.

The Flying Stick camera stores energy when it’s rubbed between your palms and, when released, uses that energy to fly into the air and take pictures at a set interval.

It would also have face recognition technology which would know where to focus to take the perfect pictures of you (or anybody else) from above.

I’m thinking 4 megapixels and a gigabyte or two of memory and they’ve got a seller. More pics after the jump. Read more »

On the heels of contact lenses with circuits comes news of an eyeball-implanted camera patent. In the future, this technology could help restore sight to people with damaged vision. The camera could be charged wirelessly and would communicate directly with a chip implanted at the back of the eye.

Although not a new idea, this is the first time scientists think the whole mechanism can be squeezed inside of the human eye without using any external devices.

Hopefully this becomes a reality soon as a lot of people could use one of these. It also begs the question – will this not only give them sight, but also super-human power to zoom in and see at night on day?