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Smartphone cameras might not have all the bells and whistles you get with a high-quality DSLR. But the camera you use the most is probably going to be the one that’s always with you… so lots of folks snap lots of photos with their phones. And device makers have been coming up with ways to help you take better smartphone snapshots.
Samsung offers the Galaxy S4 Zoom, a camera with an optical zoom lens, and the new HTC One (M8) has a dual-lens camera to let you adjust focus in your pictures even after you snap a photo.
But HTC may also be taking a page out of Samsung’s book — an HTCÂ official says the company is working on advanced optics and that could include zoom lenses for future smartphones.
Here’s a roundup of tech news from around the web.
- HTC hints at cameras with optical zoom camera lenses
HTC’s Symon Whitehorn says “we’ll see huge advances in phone optics” within the next 12 to 18 months. [Vodafone] - Apache OpenOffice hits 100 million downloads in 2 years
Sure, spinoff LibreOffice gets a lot of attention, but Apache OpenOffice seems to be doing just fine. [PC World] - Samsung’s free and ad-free Milk Music service won’t be free/ad-free for long
When Samsung launched the music streaming service, it was described as a free and ad-free experience. Now it looks like ads are on the way… and you’ll have to pay $3.99 per month if you want to make them go away. [TNW] - Shuttle+ Music Player for Android gains Chromecast support, new themes and more
Shuttle+ is my music player of choice when I’m not using Google Play Music. It has an attractive user interface and the ability to grab aritst info and photos from the internet. Now you can also use the paid version of the app to stream music to a Chromecast. [/r/Android] - Koush leaves Cyanogen to focus on his own app development
The developer of ClockworkMod Recovery, AllCast media streamer, and Helium backup is returning to his roots and working on those apps, among other things. [Android Police] - Photos taken with the OnePlus One smartphone camera
The upcoming phone features a 13MP Sony Exmor camera. OnePlus plans to officially launch the phone on April 23rd, but a contest winner got a chance to take one for a spin to test the camera, and it looks like decent photographers will be able to take pretty decent photos. [OnePlus Forums]
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Optical zoom is of course next step for smartphone makers to make smartphones
even more competitive and more dslr-like.
Norwegian Polight is using energy efficient mems tech for changing
the lens focus.
But here we will see a huge tech step forthcoming years.
Nokia announced lat year that some coming Lumia will have Pelican Imaging
special micro lens array with 16 micro lenses.
Plican Imaging array of 16 micro lenses makes it possible to even make 3D shots!