Sony 3D Camera Technology to Fuel Smartphone Upgrade Cycle in 2019

cageymaru

cageymaru

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Bloomberg is reporting that smartphone manufacturers such as Apple, Huawei, and Samsung have taken interest in 3D camera technology from Sony. The cameras can create 3D images of objects and faces that can be used for virtual shopping and gesture control. Sony is a major player in the camera chip market as it controls about 50% of the market, but it has rivals such as Lumentum Holdings Inc. and STMicroelectronics NV in the 3D chip market.

Sony 3D camera technology differs from current chips on the market as it uses invisible laser pulses to scan the object. This creates more detailed 3D models and works at distances up to 5 meters away. Sony has demonstrated an app that can scan a room and place virtual goldfish swimming around objects in the room. This technology is expected to fuel the next wave of smartphone sales as it will give consumers a reason to upgrade.

"Cameras revolutionized phones, and based on what I've seen, I have the same expectation for 3D," said Yoshihara, who has worked for more than a decade on wider industry adoption of cameras in smartphones. "The pace will vary by field, but we're definitely going to see adoption of 3D. I'm certain of it."
 
So they'll keep removing things that people actually use (*cough*headphone jacks*cough*) so they can continue putting in stupid "toy" features that will be used for all of 5 minutes before getting lost in the dustbin of pointless software bloat.
 
Why does a cellphone need this capability again?

3D creepshots incoming...
 
cageymaru said:
This technology is expected to fuel the next wave of smartphone sales as it will give consumers a reason to upgrade.
Click to expand...

I give this a giant MEH.

I'm supposed to want to upgrade my phone so I can take something as gimmicky as a 3D image? I doubt it.

This tech will be fun to play with for 10-15 minutes, but once the novelty wears off I doubt I'd ever use it again.

I just replaced the battery in my first gen Pixel. It is still running great. I'll definitely be keeping it at least until Google discontinues security patching in October 2019. At that point I'm hoping LineageOS will have an official build.

edit:

Apparently the first gen Pixel and Pixel XL official LineageOS builds back in August, and I didn't notice. Sweet, now I don't need to worry about losing security patching in October.
 
Only reason I'm considering an upgrade is because my phone's battery life is literally measured in minutes right now. If I keep the screen off, I'll be lucky to go 2 hours before it dies, and with my particular phone, I have a 75% chance of breaking the screen attempting to replace the battery. I have contacted a few cellphone repair shops and they would either not do my phone or charge way too much (HTC 10). No more HTC for me, especially with the removal of the headphone jack.
 
With Apple's AR measure app and these new 3D sensors I think you can have a pretty damn cheap 3D scanner. Thats great for me since I have a lot of 3d printers. Other than that I can't see why people would really need this. For me it would trigger an update because I would use it for my own side projects.
 
Tsumi said:
Only reason I'm considering an upgrade is because my phone's battery life is literally measured in minutes right now. If I keep the screen off, I'll be lucky to go 2 hours before it dies, and with my particular phone, I have a 75% chance of breaking the screen attempting to replace the battery. I have contacted a few cellphone repair shops and they would either not do my phone or charge way too much (HTC 10). No more HTC for me, especially with the removal of the headphone jack.
Click to expand...

UbreakIfix (Googles authorized repair center) charged me $79 for the service. A little steep, but much cheaper than replacing the phone, especially since I am otherwise still very happy with it. My Pixel 1 is an HTC design, so similar difficulties applied with the screen, which is why I didn't attempt it on my own.

I'd guess the price is so high because it includes having to replace the screen the x% of the time it breaks during service.

According to the Accubattery app, my phone was down to 34% battery life prior to the replacement. Usage times were short and random shutdowns were frequent. Now as a test I havent recharged it since I went to bed last night at about 2am. After a night without charging and a day of light use, I still have 52% left, so I'd say it was a success.
 
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