Frankencamera the Open Source Camera

The Frankencamera is a gadget that allows you to build your own open source applications for the camera. It was created by Marc Levoy who is a professor at Stanford and Andrew Adams.

Levoy says the megapixel was is over and now we are just left waiting to see what the next feature will be every time a new camera is launched. The open source camera lets you mess around with the camera settings and create your own features. With it being open source you can let the experts create the features and then you simply just download them. This means that there will be no more waiting around for companies to innovate.

The motherboard on the camera is a Texas Instruments system on a chip that runs Linux. Image sensors and other processors are attached as well as an LCD screen. The imaging chip if from a Nokia N95 mobile phone and for a lens it uses any off the shelf Canon lens.

By using an open source camera it will allow users to just download and install applications on their cameras. The team at Stanford hope to have the camera. This is the hope of Andrew Adams (pictured below). The camera should be ready for launch next year all being well.