Researchers Design a Self-Powered Digital Camera

Jason Koebler writes: Researchers at Columbia University have designed a fully electric digital camera that powers itself using ambient light. Put in a well-lit room, it would work indefinitely. The camera's image sensor does double duty. It measures the light needed to make the photograph, and it also takes excess light and uses it to power a capacitor (it has no battery) that runs the camera (PDF). The research team says the technology can be used to create self-powered cameras that can live on the internet of things.

Comments

Re:Story is that it's a very low power camera

[gurps_npc]

I can think of several situations where a camera is desirable but what you want won't work. The main example is observation of large areas where capture rate is meaningless.

For example if you want to look for forest fires, you plant a camera on a high spot, overlooking a large area of forest. It takes a picture every hour.

Another example is time lapse photos for environmental/biological research.