Earlier this morning, Samsung made an announcement that will hopefully soon lead to some major improvements as far as notebook-integrated webcams are concerned. The South Korean electronics giant has developed a 1/4-inch CMOS sensor that is capable of producing high-quality 30 frames-per-second video at 720p and it small enough to fit in just about any bezel surrounding a laptop display. Woh. The new S5K4AW imager is a major step towards a more usable notebook webcam experience compared to the choppy, low-quality caming most are forced to endure today. This new sensor also supposedly provides much better low-light video than current sensors by more than doubling the cam’s binning performance (dark pixels are grouped and compressed while brighter pixels are enhanced). Various Samsung partners are already sampling the new S5K4AW sensor and the company is aiming at production in the first half of 2009.
[Via Giz]
