Refocus-able Cameras in Our Future

"So... you guys have heard of the camera that's refocus-able after the fact?"

I loved the way Stanford University Professor Marc Levoy oh-so-casually asked the question around 15 minutes into his video interview with Robert Scoble on the Scoble Show.

The idea: when you take a photo, the camera is actually storing more information than is displayed when you're viewing one image. Instead, the camera stores multiple versions for each point on the image. Thanks to the additional data, you can adjust the focus of the image after you've already taken the photo.


Focus shifts from the blinds in the background to the face in the foreground.


Focus shifts from the lady in the foreground to the people in the back.

Head over to Robert Scoble's blog to watch the entire interview, or catch the 5-minute excerpt.