Imagine your monitor being a video camera too.

Looks like Apple has patented such a device.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn9059&feedId=online-news_rss20

Apple's all-seeing screen

We could soon see a new kind of display screen from computer maker Apple – one that simultaneously takes pictures while showing images.

The clever idea is to insert thousands of microscopic image sensors in-between the liquid crystal display cells in the screen. Each sensor captures its own small image, but software stitches these together to create a single, larger picture.

A large LCD screen filled with image sensors would be ideal for videoconferencing, Apple suggests, as participants would always appear to look straight into the "camera". The technique could also add a camera function to a cellphone or PDA without wasting space, and light from the screen should help illuminate a subject.

The more sensors there are, the wider and clearer the image. Sketches accompanying the company's patent show as many sensors as liquid crystal cells in a screen. If some of the sensors have different focal lengths, switching between them would make the screen behave like a zoom lens.

Here's the patent

http://tinyurl.com/h9hbs

That was his idea

I'm re-reading 1984 right now.

and bury the tech when they're done.

I don't like this idea at all....

/me pukes.

even if you turn it off, how do you know it's really 'turned off'? :scared:

(without the quotes). Hit return.

I still don't know if it's really off. I admit it, I read 1984 too many times.

look for it.

I don't video conference, and I don't do Internet Sex, so I have no reason to own one.

Besides, big brother could turn it on remotely and I would never even know! :silly:

worry about. :eyes:

Al Qaeda :eyes:

Something like this may really make videoconferancing/videophones take off. As it is, it always looks kind of cheesy, because people are watching their monitor, not the camera. It always looks like they're not paying attention. But with this, you could actually look AT each other, and I don't think there's any overestimating how much differance that's going to make in making videoconferancing go mainstream.

inch of the screen.

http://www.apple.com/imac/frontrow.html

But still, having the sensors between the pixels is incredible. I can see other uses for them like gesture recognition. You could use it as an ASL interpreter.

Now look into the screen for your daily retina scan.

Selling flashy monitor covers... :evilgrin:

Then you'll REALLY never know when you're being watched.

Rockin' my tinfoil hat, of course :tinfoilhat: .....but hey, with what's happened the last 5 years, anything can happen.

mooning them, and some rude behavior.

I mean, its not like they will secretly imbed them in your monitor and then install spyware to stream the video to the internet...

Sheesh, get a grip, folks.