Photos from anywhere but a camera | ZDNet

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You can thank cell phone carriers, who have hit on images as the latest way to convince subscribers to chew up more airtime, said John Lynch, vice president of marketing for OmniVision Technologies, a Taiwan-based chipmaker specializing in image-sensor chips. Jeff Hallock, senior director of product marketing for Sprint, said capturing and sharing images via cell phones is the industrys best shot to introduce consumers here to advanced wireless services. The quality of images a cell phone can capture is also improving, thanks to advances in sensor chips and other technology, said John Gerard, director marketing for chipmaker Pictos. Even computing stalwart Hewlett-Packard is working to minimize the role of the PC, showing off printers that read images directly from memory cards, display them on small LCD screens and produce prints better than what youll get from the drugstore. Competition among chipmakers is also likely to heat up, as CMOS image sensors--largely relegated to sub-$100 cameras until now--penetrate new markets because of size and power advantages, and sophisticated new designs.

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