If you think HD close-up shots can reveal a little too much
information about the state of your favourite TV star's
complexion, wait until you get a load of an experimental camera
built by Duke University researchers that can produce a still or
video image with a whopping billion pixels. The 'Aware-2' camera
uses 98 14 mega-pixel sensors placed around a sphere to stitch
together images in excruciating detail - five times as much, in
fact, as a person with 20/20 vision sees, The Wall Street
Journal reported yesterday. Conventional digital cameras operate
by decreasing lens speed and field of view as lens scale
increases. But the Duke researchers decided to disregard that
relationship and said their experimental camera system confirms
the idea that the shutter speed and aperture can be independent
of the lens scale in 50 giga-pixel microcameras. The Aware-2 is
also a step away from 'point-and-click' photography-shutterbugs
armed with one of these cameras would simply have to turn the
thing on and let it capture