EmTech Spl: Next billion cameras by 2011

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The next two years is going to see an increase of another billion cameras in the world, believes Dr Ramesh Raskar, Associate Professor at The Media Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The media lab at the Massachusetts Institute of technology has been working on more than a few concepts and has close ties with Industry giants like Microsoft, Google, Canon, Nokia and many more.  

"Most of the next billion cameras are going to come in the developing countries. We believe that there are going to be cameras in every nook and corner of the country and that will go a long way in changing the social values as well," said Raskar while making a presentation on 'Next Billion Cameras', at EmTech India here.

New concepts which Dr. Raskar and the media labs have been working on include Mask based light field cameras that can let a user refocus a picture after it has been taken. A new shutter operation scheme called shutter flutter which gives interesting blurry effects.

Further elaborating on the future trends, Raskar said, "We are continuously working on new types of optics, sensors that can change the way we use our cameras. Visual Social Computing is going to be an important trend in India, which would lead to image-based commerce.

"Visual social computing is going to be by the people, for the people and of the people," said Raskar.

Talking of visual computing Dr. Raskar divided it into forward (synthesis) and inverse (understanding). The forward part consists of things like image processing and special effects which can easily be executed by computers but it’s the inverse or the understanding part like recognizing and preferences which still needs human input. Overall, apart from every day photography, new concepts like those mentioned above have the potential to change the way we look at news reporting, social interactions and many other things.

In another presentation in the same session, Dr Kunal Bose, Application Scientist-Nano Measurement Division at Agilent Technologies said, "Nano Measurement is an evolving field and the technology will be useful in stain/water resistant, disease detection, drug delivery, DNA fingerprints and water purification. It is also converging the chemical as well as biology measurement." 

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