Camera Phones: A Snapshot of Research and Applications

Once considered science fiction, mobile phones with digital cameras are now inexpensive, widely available, and very popular. Significantly more camera phones are sold each year than dedicated digital cameras. According to Strategy Analytics, it´s likely that over one billion camera phones were sold last year. Surprisingly, the tremendous popularity of camera phones has caused little controversy. A few companies and institutions have banned camera phones owing to security concerns, and there has been some abuse of personal privacy, but for the most part, there has been worldwide acceptance of this new technology. Smart phones with smart cameras have clearly enabled new applications. Even better, the widespread availability of these devices makes it possible to bring these new applications to hundreds of millions of users.