Camera phones may soon offer more megapixels than some DSLR cameras. Imaging company OmniVision announced today that they have developed a 14.6-megapixel image sensor that will fit in cell phones. These sensors are capable of both high-resolution still photography and 1080p high-definition video recording.

I wonder how long it will be before camera phone imaging quality rivals the quality of the best point-and-shoot cameras.

(via Photography Bay)

According to a patent filed in June 2007, Nikon is looking into adding an email client directly into their point-and-shoot cameras (DSLR users can breathe a sigh of relief). This would allow people to quickly email photographs from their cameras, rather than have to transfer them to a computer first.

Obviously this is being done more and more these days through the use of cameraphones, and having email capabilities in a camera might not be very useful unless the camera can access the Internet from anywhere. However, email capabilities would be extremely useful on a trip if you don’t have your laptop with you.

What do you think of this idea? Do point-and-shoot cameras need email?

(via Nikon Rumors)

Google announced a pretty awesome new product today called Google Goggles that has the potential to completely change the way we think about search. It’s basically an application that will tell you all sorts of information based on photographs you take with your camera phone.

Snap a photographs of the Golden Gate Bridge, and the application will provide you with search results for the Golden Gate Bridge. Want to learn what others are saying about a particular book in the store? Simply snap a photograph of the cover and Google Goggles will tell you.

The application is most useful in situations where you know know the name of what you’re trying to search for. For example, if you’re staring at a painting that you love but don’t know the name of, Google Goggles can quickly tell you all about it:

This is a great glimpse into the exciting technologies that we’ll be enjoying in the coming years, and is definitely only the tip of the iceberg. There will probably come a day when this type of search is fast enough and powerful enough to be displayed instantly on the screen while using the video feature of camera phones. This concept is being pursued by numerous tech companies (likely Google as well), and is called augmented reality.

For Google’s explanation of Google Goggle’s, check out this video they have on the official page: