Focus on mobile - Moving pictures take centre stage
The latest advances in mobile imaging software have helped camera phones to rise far
beyond their modest point-and-shoot beginnings, says Scalado's Fadi Abbas
If mobile phones are going to be used as credit cards with £10,000 credit limits, or annual season tickets worth £3,000 on the rail networks, or as corporate identity cards or log in devices for bank accounts, or for any of a myriad of other transactional purposes, then the service providers, their customers, and their regulators will need to be confident about the security of the systems. We think that if stakeholders carry out methodical risk analysis and implement appropriate countermeasures, they will determine not only that mobile payments can be made safe, but that they would be crazy to carry on using cards!
It's hard to believe, but the camera phone as we know it today has only been around since the mid-1990s. And it wasn't until 1997 that Philippe Kahn instantly shared his pictures from the maternity ward - with more than 2000 family, friends and associates from all over the world - when his daughter Sophie was born. More than any other moment in the camera phone's history thus far, this simple story marked a turning point for the integration of a digital camera with a mobile phone, and the dawn of a whole new era of instant visual communications.
However, back when digital cameras were first integrated with mobile phones, they were considered by many to be something of an afterthought, perhaps even a gimmick. With phone manufacturers desperately trying to differentiate themselves in a highly competitive market, it was tempting to pack as much as possible into each handset - without much concern for quality or usability.
This model, however, has changed rapidly over the years, with end-users becoming more tech savvy, and with competition in this area becoming even more fierce. As a result, the latest generation of camera phones are now grabbing the headlines as much for their high-end camera functionality, as they are for the phones themselves.
In fact, by 2003, more camera phones were being sold worldwide than stand-alone digital cameras, and in 2004, Nokia became the world's best-selling digital camera brand. By 2006, half of the world's mobile phones had a built-in camera, and in 2008 Nokia sold more camera phones than Kodak could match with its film-based cameras, making Nokia the biggest manufacturer of any kind of camera, anywhere. And to give just one final staggering statistic: at the end of 2008, the world installed base of camera phones was 1.9 billion.
All of these figures lead us to the same conclusion: the camera phone market is enormous, and getting bigger all the time. In order to fully realise the potential of this market, innovators working in this space are concentrating on new ways to make imaging on mobile phones more efficient, by bringing higher usability for end-users, and by cutting hardware costs for handset manufacturers who are increasingly having to compete with products which can offer phone, email, camera, and music functions in a single device.
As such, the latest mobile imaging Software Development Kits (SDKs) are now able to provide handset manufacturers with CPU and memory efficient software solutions that can drastically decrease image processing times when capturing, viewing, and editing large images. The latest innovations made possible by this focus on mobile imaging software means that end-users can now create high quality, high-resolution multi-megapixel shots automatically, with an ordinary camera phone.
Likewise, photographers using a camera phone can now instantly capture multi-megapixel images without any "shutter lag", thereby freezing the exact moment of capture. Until now, only advanced Digital Still Cameras (DSC) and Single Lens Reflex (SLR) cameras have been capable of managing the delay between pressing the capturing button and actually saving the captured image. As a result, 'shutter lag' has typically been one of the biggest technical challenges facing camera phones, especially when photographing moving objects. However, with the latest 'zero shutter lag' technology shipping very soon on many camera phones, users can be sure that the image which they see in the viewfinder is the image that they capture. Users can then instantly zoom into the resulting JPEG images to review the details of the image in real-time.
Additionally, with another innovative integration of hardware and software in one of the most amazing imaging technological breakthroughs for the cameraphone to date, software can continually store the latest number of images seen through the viewfinder, so that once the user pushes the capture button, the application will save the images from both before and after capture. With this advancement, full-resolution images can be captured from a point before the user hits the capture button, even as the viewfinder continues to show live images in real-time. With this unique feature, mobile users are then able to choose from a number of captured images, and even use "time travel" to move backward and forward in time in order to find the exact moment they want to capture.
By providing instant random access to the captured JPEG, mobile imaging software can deliver unprecedented JPEG handling performance, as well as faster image browsing in the phone's photo album. As a result, there are now mobile imaging solutions that can provide 20 frames/second instant full-resolution image handling, instant zoom/pan at the moment the image is captured, and burst-mode image capture. As with shutter lag, burst-mode image capture - the rapid capture of multiple images - has, until now been associated only with expensive, high-end cameras.
Indeed, traditional features are getting more sophisticated, and yet being made more accessible with lower price points. For example, it is not uncommon to find a 8.1 MP camera along with some impressive photo features like face detection, video recording capabilities, Smart Contrast (that balances light and dark areas), image stabilisation, and a Xenon flash at an affordable price. At the same time, built-in accelerometers are making sure that photos are automatically changed to landscape mode when the user turns the camera, whilst A-GPS technology allows photos to be "geo-tagged" with geographical identification metadata.
The demand for mobile imaging software solutions that are powerful, scalable and modular - and suitable for any camera phone - is growing exponentially. The response from the industry is to make imaging on mobile phones more efficient - bringing higher usability for end-users and cutting hardware costs for device manufacturers. By accessing a number of unique and patented software technologies, manufacturers are finding new and innovative ways to solve critical performance issues with less memory and CPU requirements.
Enhancements like these really are the way of the future. Since the launch of Apple's iPhone, the mobile world has begun to focus its attention on improving user experience, but without sacrificing the latest features and high specifications. However, despite all the positive reviews and feedback about the iPhone's usability, the phone's camera fell short for many.
Increasingly, software developers working in this space believe that the end users should have it all: a combination of high megapixels, amazing speed, and powerful imaging software that is underpinned by a unrivalled user experience. After all, a positive user experience is absolutely essential if a mobile handset is to be successful in this competitive market. After all, according to a survey conducted by InfoTrends/CAP Ventures, camera phones are expected to account for 89% of all mobile phone handsets shipped by the end of the year.
The introduction of a wide range of sought-after features - such as mobile search and multi-touch screens - are becoming even more important than the technical specifications that manufactures have traditionally used to compete. As a result, handset manufacturers will continue to deliver high-specification phones with intuitive functionality and optimum usability in order to complement their customers' personalities and lifestyles. In other words, manufacturers are focusing on technology that fuses seamlessly into people's lives.
The latest study from InfoTrends has revealed that consumers place a high value on having the ability to take photos with their mobile phones. In fact, over half of respondents cited a camera for taking photos as a vital feature on their mobile phone, second only to text messaging capabilities and ranking significantly above all other features included in the survey.
This same study also aimed to determine what factors encourage consumers to use the camera on their phones. The survey results suggest that consumers with higher resolution camera phones capture, edit, upload, and print more of their camera phone photos. This is in part because respondents with higher resolution camera phones are more likely to capture photos due to their increased image quality, and it is also likely that those with a greater interest in photography are more likely to deliberately purchase a camera phone with higher megapixels. Regardless, as time goes on and specifications continue to improve, the availability of higher quality camera phones will likely provide a much needed boost to the entire mobile imaging industry.
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