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Thanks to a German research institute, in the very near future, we may not even see the cameras looking back at us at all.
It may not be news that camera technology is getting smaller, but it is newsworthy when an important milestone is reached. Take the announcement from the German Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration for example. They recently reported the development of a camera with a lens attached that is 1 x 1 x 1.5 millimeters in size, which is the size of a grain of salt. At about a cubic millimeter in size, this camera is right at the size limit that the human eye can see unaided. The camera not only produces decent images but it is also very cheap to manufacture…so cheap in fact that it is considered disposable. Though researchers developed the camera in collaboration with the Portuguese company Awaiba, the makers of digital camera sensors, for use in medical endoscopes to view all the nooks and crannies inside the body, other applications in electronic devices are already foreseen. There’s even speculation that auto makers may utilize these microcameras as replacements for side mirrors in next-gen cars. And, of course, every government interested in keeping a closer eye on its citizens but doesn’t have a lot of cash…ahem…will probably be watching this technology closely.
Now that is a small camera... and I'm sure it will only be used for medical applications
