LYTRO is the working name of a company that has just announced a new type of technology for taking images. It was developed by a professor at Stanford University and has received substantial funding to bring this technology to market. It's based upon research the inventor did a while back on light fields.
The technology is described as "focus free" meaning the image when taken does not have to be in focus. Rather, the camera takes all of the information it can from the "light field", stores it digitally and then allows the user to manipulate the image in an infinite number of ways. The sensor used captures more information than current ones. It can capture not only color, but the direction and intensity of every light beam in the light field. The result is an image file with far more information than is recorded by current image sensors that in turn allows greater manipulation of the image file when being processed.
The technology while promising is not yet ready to compete with the likes of Canon or Nikon. The company has perfected a means of creating a sensor that will record all of the information from a light field. But it still must solve the problem of developing the software necessary to process all of this information to render an acceptable image.
You can read more about this technology at: CNNMONEY and at LYTRO.
If you would like to try it out go to: MASHABLE.
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