Quality of pictures made by camera phones has become quite acceptable by most people, but optical zoom is missing from almost every handset, and that's not by chance. Optical zooming requires very high quality lens, which are very hard to cram inside into a 1.5 cm case without decreasing picture quality too much and the use of cameras on the side of the phone (like Nokia N93i) is not really comfortable. This problem has been recognized by Tessera, who have a simpler, more innovative solution than liquid lens. OptiML needs no moving pars, but it's still no simple digital zoom.
The solution involves highly increasing the resolution of the central part of the lens and the picture sensor, meaning that the distribution of pixels is not uniform as in conventional solutions. Processing this needs special algorithms, but it also means that the central part of the picture can be zoomed to triple, based on actually sensed pixels. Tessera's licensable solution also brings zooming without intermediate levels, continuous focusing and brightness increases by up to 250%. It's unknown which manufacturer is going to be the first to embed such a solution in its phones, but the first reviews are sure to show what can the technology do in practice.
Translated by Szaszati
