BBC, WSJ, Business Insider, Snap: Snapchat launches its first hardware product, a camera equipped sunglasses named Spectacles. Simultaneously the company changes its name to Snap to reflect that its activity expands beyond the smartphone application.

The world's largest image sensor distributor Framos discovers a new opportunity and comes up with its own brand image sensors:The technological change from CCD to CMOS sensors also offers huge opportunities in medical diagnostics, however, there are no standard sensors for endoscopes.

IHS publishes its estimation of iPhone 7 BOM, with cameras costing $19.90 or about 8.9% of the total $224.80.For comparison, iPhone 5s cameras cost was 6-7% of the BOM, iPhone 6 and 6s - about 7.7%, and iPhone SE - about 8.5%.

PRNewswire: OmniVision announces the latest addition to its portfolio of automotive image sensors, the 3um global shutter pixel-based OV7261 is aimed to gesture control and driver monitoring applications such as driver drowsiness and distraction detection.

Chipworks iPhone 7 teardown reveals no surprises - both the rear and the front sensors are made by Sony:"The iSight camera chip was sourced from Sony and fabricated using its Exmor RS technology platform.

Vision Systems Design conducts a poll "When you think of image sensors (non-IR), which vendor comes to mind first?" The results for 2 days since Friday, Sept. 16 are below, based, apparently, on 30 votes so far:Update: Here is the poss after a week-long voting on Sept.

BusinessWire: InVisage says it achieves a LIDAR-like performance in its Spark Micro-LiDAR (SML20) structured light module. The previously announced Spark4K 13MP, 1.1um NIR sensor enables the SML20 module to sense structured light patterns at a range of 20m, even in direct sunlight.

Qualcomm Clear Sight dual camera technology is powered by Qualcomm Spectra ISP and is designed to give photos improved DR, sharpness, and less noise in low light. The two camera lenses have identical focal length (meaning they see the same distance).

IFTLE 303 reviews the progress in stacked image sensors over the past few years, covering Sony, Samsung, Omnivision, Aptina, Olympus, and other companies.

9to5Mac quotes KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo saying that in iPhone 7 dual camera, the OIS is installed only on wide angle camera:"Note that for the dual-camera of iPhone 7 Plus, wide-angle CCM is equipped with optical image stabilization (OIS) VCM, while telephoto CCM only comes with general V...

The 2017 International Image Sensor Workshop (IISW) to be held in Hiroshima, Japan, on May 30 - June 2, 2017, calls for papers presenting innovative work in the area of solid-state image sensors and share new results with the imaging community.

Autoliv and Volvo are to form a new jointly-owned company to develop next generation autonomous driving software. The planned new company will have its headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden, and an initial workforce taken from both companies of around 200, increasing to over 600 in the medium term.

Corrected: Sony Kumamoto fab has been impacted by another earthquake on Aug.

The Leica Summilux 12mm f1.4 is a wide-angle prime lens for the Micro Four Third system. Mounted on an Olympus or Panasonic body, it delivers 24mm equivalent coverage, while the f1.4 focal ratio is the brightest for this focal length in the MFT catalogue.

SeekingAlpha: ISP manufacturer Ambarella reports lower Q2 2016 revenues. Few quotes:"In Q2 2017, our revenue was $65.1 million, down as forecasted of our last call about $84.2 million of revenue in the same period over the prior year.

Counterpoint Research publishes an article on resolution trends showing that 13MP+ cameras get wide adoption in all price categories:Analyzing this trend is very important as the ‘camera megapixel race’ is kickstarting in sub-premium segments, whereas premium segments have moved on.

Digitimes reports that the demand for iris and face recognition processors for smartphones is to surge, according to the newspaper's industry sources.Pixart is expected to be among the first China and Taiwan-based players capable of rolling out related solutions.

Inspired by Ig Nobel prizes this week, here is a roundup of the recent prize-worthy patent applications that incorporate image sensors:Philips application US20160262521 "A system and a method for guiding a user during a shaving procedure" by Jacek Lukasz Kustra, Guido Theodorus Gerardus Volleberg, S...

Teledyne DALSA announces the multi-line color CMOS TDI cameras in its Piranha XL family. Piranha XL cameras feature multi-line color CMOS TDI and employ Teledyne DALSA's CMOS architecture for color imaging using 4 rows per RGB channel for 12 rows in total.

Image Sensor Americas conference to be held on Oct.

BusinessWire: The new 8MP 4/3-inch KAE-08151 IT-EMCCD delivers the sub-electron noise floor for applications like high resolution microscopy and scientific imaging operating in lighting regimes from sub-lux to bright-light imaging.

PRNewswire: OmniVision announces the 1080p30 OV2775 built on 2.8um OmniBSI-2 Deep Well pixel technology, which delivers a 16-bit linear output from a single exposure with best-in-class low-light sensitivity.

Chipworks teardown reveals that Samsung Galaxy Note 7 uses a dedicated camera for iris scanning feature, in addition to the usual front and rear cameras:Note 7 Iris Scanner

e2v publishes a promotional video of its Ruby 1.

The Nikon 105mm f1.4E is a unique telephoto lens boasting the brightest aperture in its class. Previously the longest commonly available lenses with an f1.4 focal ratio stopped at 85mm, and while a 135mm f1.4 has been announced by Mitakon, it's limited to 100 units and not yet available.

Basler partners with Advantech, NVIDIA, and Xilinx to launch imaginghub.com, an online community portal for engineers, software developers, and hobbyists interested in embedded vision and potential applications, ranging from beginner to professional level.

Pyxalis and Framos partner to offer a customizable image sensor design based on Pyxalis HDPYX sensor. The sensor is designed as a modular platform rather than a fully custom sensor, the device is made to adapt to various types of scientific and surveillance applications.

EETimes interviews Eran Kali, VP of licensing at Corephotonics:Kali told EE Times that Corephotonics is “the inventor of the computational dual camera for smartphones” derived from its own IPs.Apple, however, is not Corephotonics’ licensee, Kali said.

Intel announces its intention to acquire Movidius. Intel SVP of New Technologies Group Josh Walden says: "We see massive potential for Movidius to accelerate our initiatives in new and emerging technologies.

Sharp has updated its lineup of CCDs for security applications with faster devices:

9to25Mac quotes KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo saying that the oncoming iPhone 7 Plus will have the dual camera. The camera is said to enable optical zoom and ‘light field camera applications’.

Qualcomm introduces its first VR reference platform, the Snapdragon™ VR820.

LIPS announces LIPSedge AT and LIPSedge DL ToF cameras "after a lengthy test drive over many proof of concept integration by our interested business partners.

Innsbruck University, Austria publishes BSc thesis "Developing a Low-Cost Augmented Reality System" by Carsten Fischer, talking about camera design issues, among other stuff:"The goal of this document is to give the reader a better understanding of the underlying theory of augmented reality systems ...

Albert Theuwissen publishes a review of the first AutoSens conference held last week in Brussels, Belgium. The review covers Yole, Softkinetic and ST presentations.

PRNewswire: SoftKinetic announces the DepthSense 541, said to be the world's smallest 3D ToF camera created for mobile platforms.

PRNewswire: OmniVision announces the OV10650, a wide-format imager with 2:1 aspect ratio. Built on 4.2um OmniBSI split pixel, the OV10650 delivers 1820 x 940 resolution at up to 60fps and 120dB of DR.

PRNewswire: Boyd Fowler, Omnivision's VP of Marketing, delivered a keynote at 10th International Conference on Distributed Smart Cameras (ICDSC) in Paris on highlights from the 2015 International Image Sensor Workshop.

Samsung paper "Narrow-band Organic Photodiodes for High-resolution Imaging" by Moon Gyu Han, Kyung-Bae Park, Xavier Bulliard, Gae Hwang Lee, Sungyoung Yun, Dong-Seok Leem, Chul-Joon Heo, Tadao Yagi, Rie Sakurai, Takkyun Ro, Seon-Jeong Lim, Sangchul Sul, Kyoungwon Na, Jungchak Ahn, Yong Wan Jin, and ...

Basler is about to start its first ToF camera production these days, based on Panasonic MN34902BL CCD:

ResearchInChina releases "Global and China VR and AR Industry Report, 2016-2020.

ETNews: SK Hynix plans to start manufacturing its 13MP CIS on 300mm fab called M10, located in Icheon, Korea, in 2017. The company is currently installing the production equipment. So far, Hynix image sensors have been produced at 200mm M8 fab.

Tesla announces a change of direction of its self-driving car development:"The radar was added to all Tesla vehicles in October 2014 as part of the Autopilot hardware suite, but was only meant to be a supplementary sensor to the primary camera and image processing system.

TriOptics publishes a promotional video on its ProCam automated camera module assembly and testing line:ARMDevices publishes a tour on Shuoying camera factory in Shenzhen, China. Shuoying is a large action camera, security IP camera, and single-lens and dual-lens 360 degree camera assembly house.

Techcrunch: As expected, Apple officially presents iPhone 7 Plus with dual rear camera with optical zoom: one lens handles 1x zoom, the other handles 2x: Apple is using two cameras to create a shallow DOF, DSLR quality bokeh, and depth map of image:The depth enabled features will come later this yea...

ALA News: ULIS launches 80x80 pixel Micro80 Gen2 thermal sensor aimed at large-volume applications. It features novel packaging solutions by being the first Ball Grid Array (BGA) infrared sensor box packaged in a JEDEC tray.

EETimes publishes project manager at Corephotonics Roy Fridman's opinion on the reasons why dual camera in smartphones might have an advantage:By using such dual cameras, smartphone manufacturers are able to support extremely advanced imaging features while keeping the solution slim (below 5mm heigh...

Omnivision patent application US20160234467 "RGBC color filter array patterns to minimize color aliasing" by Raymond Wu, Jizhang Shan, Chin Poh Pang says"Some RGBC patterns increase sensitivity but can suffer from color aliasing.

Omron presents a use case of its OKAO vision system in restaurants:

Nikkei reports that Canon will supply image sensors to other manufacturers for the first time, anticipating demand for the technology in building self-driving cars, robots and other smart devices. The plan is to start sell sensors within two years.