Imaging Beyond Pixels: Application Expansion

This blog post references my feature article 'Imaging Beyond Pixels: Enhancing The Elementary Picture' in EDN's March 15, 2007 edition.

If image sensor manufacturers only relied on still and video camera and camera phone applications for their business, then the overall slowdown trends mentioned in the main article along with (depending on their market emphasis) the potential for future market demand shift away from standalone cameras and towards 'hybrid' cameras and camera phones, might be of some concern to them. However, image capture applications are becoming increasingly diverse, thereby to at least some degree insulating suppliers from perturbations in any particular application.

There's a good chance, for example, that your laptop has a webcam embedded within its LCD's upper bezel; if not, your next laptop likely will. In the post-9/11 world, and for better or worse (or both), both private- and public-sector demand for surveillance systems is skyrocketing. And in-car navigation systems (whether passive, to provide visual guidance for the driver, or more active i.e. automated) demand image sensors mounted in numerous places around the vehicle.

What alternative applications for image sensors are you aware of, or perhaps even involved with? Recording your own life, perhaps?