Category Archives: Mobile phone

Retrotechtacular: Whatever Happened To The Paper Mobile Phone

Posted on by

It was one of the more interesting consumer tech stories floating around at the turn of the century, a disposable cell phone manufactured using a multi-layer folded paper circuit board with tracks printed in conductive ink. Its feature set was basic even by the standards of the day in that it had no display and its only function was to make calls, but with a target price of only $10 that didn’t matter. It was the brainchild of a prolific New Jersey based inventor, and it was intended to be the first in a series of paper electronic devices using …read more

Continue reading Retrotechtacular: Whatever Happened To The Paper Mobile Phone→

iPhone Microscopy and Other Adventures

Posted on by

CMOS imaging chips have been steadily improving, their cost and performance being driven by the highly competitive smartphone industry. As CMOS sensors get better and cheaper, they get more interesting for hacker lab projects. In this post I’m going to demonstrate a few applications of the high-resolution sensor that you’ve already got in your pocket — or wherever you store your cell phone.

CMOS vs CCD

First lets quickly review image sensors. You’ve probably head of CMOS and CCD sensors, but what’s the difference exactly?

As the figure above shows, CCD and CMOS sensors are both basically photodiode arrays. Photons …read more

Continue reading iPhone Microscopy and Other Adventures→