OmniVision may start volume production of omni-focus 3-megapixel image sensor by year-end

OmniVision Technologies will be able to begin volume production of its 3-megapixel CMOS image sensor with omni-focus functionality by the end of this year, said Raymond Wu, executive vice president of OmniVision.
The manufacture of 3-megapixel image sensors with omni-focus was made possible after the company acquired CDM Optics last year, Wu stated.
In addition, the company has moved the packaging of its CMOS image sensors from chip-scale packaging (CSP) to the more advanced CSP2, which is designed to handle packaging for image sensors of one-megapixels and greater, Wu noted.
The company began volume production of its new OV7670 VGA and OV9655 1.3-megapixel image sensors early this year and is expected to capture a 75% share of Taiwan’s image sensor market in 2006, stated Wu.
For all of 2005, the company shipped a total of 130 million CMOS image sensors for camera phones, accounting for a 30% global market share, Wu indicated.

Camera Phones and Privacy

Some people worry that camera phones can capture a little too much. Stories abound of peeping Toms sticking phones under bathroom doors and capturing drunken partyers on camera a little too candidly.
That's why the London-based watchdog group Privacy International recommended that all new camera phones come equipped with a flash that can't be disabled, so subjects at least realize they've been snapped.
New Jersey considered, but ultimately rejected, legislation that would have required all camera phones to emit a loud noise or bright light when snapping a picture. (The New York Times reports that Jerramiah Healy, the mayor of Jersey City, was caught on a camera phone drunk, naked and slumped on his front porch while running for office in 2004.)
Camera phones are banned in the locker rooms of some Indianapolis gyms, including Lifetime Fitness and the National Institute for Fitness and Sport. Staffers at both gyms say the policies were instituted as preventive measures, not in response to any problems.
It has sometimes been an issue at the Broad Ripple nightclub Seven. General manager Chris Kelly says the club, co-owned by Jermaine O'Neal of the Indiana Pacers, attracts celebrity athletes who may not want to be seen drinking. And every now and then, bartenders complain about "creepy guy customers" taking their picture. Still, there's no talk of a ban.