Out of focus pictures are usually a pain in the behind, but Toshiba wants all of that to change soon, as far as cameras in smartphones and tablets are concerned. The Japanese company has developed a camera module that can be placed in a tablet or smartphone that allows you to refocus the shot, even after you’ve taken a picture. The technology is similar to the one found in the Lytro camera, though significantly smaller.
Toshiba’s camera module contains a dense array of 500,000 lenses, each 0.03 millimeter in diameter, in front of an image sensor measuring 5 mm x 7 mm. The lenses capture different images and software in the camera combines it to make a bigger image.
The new camera will also be able to take videos with the same refocus effect as the one with just the images, which should make for some interesting footage. The company is calling on different smartphone manufacturers to adopt the new technology, which the company hopes to come out next year.
Source: Asahi Shinbun