Researchers at Rice University in Houston, Texas are developing a single-pixel camera aimed at taking on the ?inefficiencies? of the modern digital camera.

The single-pixel camera aims to do away with the millions of pixels that are often not needed in a modern image due to redundant or duplicate information in the shot.

Whilst the camera is currently the size of a suitcase and bears a resemblance to an old-fashioned pinhole camera, Kevin Kelly, assistant professor of electrical engineering at Rice, states that it is only ?the beginning of things?. ?Hopefully it will get smaller,? he added.

?What is so inefficient about this (modern digital camera compression) is that we acquire all these numbers ? for example 10 megapixels ? only to throw away 80-90% when we do the compression process,? explained Dr Kelly?s colleague Richard Baraniuk.

If the device ever makes it to the market it could make digital cameras more efficient and dramatically improve battery life by doing away with the need to process and compress each image.

?Instead of using a million really expensive sensors, we can use one really expensive sensor and give you a million-pixel image,? said Kelly

Watch this space for further developments!

For a more technical insight into the single-pixel camera, visit Dr Kelly?s single-pixel explanatiory page at – http://www.dsp.ece.rice.edu/cs/cscamera/

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