In an economic forum in Tokyo, Android-co-founder Andy Rubin said, “The exact same platform, the exact same operating system we built for cameras, that became Android for cellphones.” So, I guess products like the Nikon Coolpix S800c and Samsung Galaxy Camera aren’t that far-fetched after all.

The original intention for Android was to provide a platform for a smart camera that would sync easily with computers. Rubin described a 2004 marketing pitch for Android where he spoke of a camera that hooked up to a computer connected to an “Android Datacenter.” However, they decided that the digital camera market “wasn’t actually a big enough market,” but the smartphone market was growing. In either case, Android was designed to be a mass market platform from the get-go.

“We wanted as many cellphones to use Android as possible,” said Rubin. “So instead of charging $99, or $59, or $69 [like how other companies license their software], to Android, we gave it away for free, because we knew the industry was price sensitive.”

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Planning to get a 3D printer soon? Maybe you can bundle that with a new affordable 3D scanner from Canadian startup Matterform. The Photon 3D Scanner costs just C$450 ($443) and its makers have already raised over C$250,000 of C$81,000 goal at Indiegogo with three weeks to go. That’s how popular it has become.

In comparison, 3D scanner NextEngine comes with a price tag of $3,000. According to Drew Cox, one of Matterform’s co-founders, “We built [the Photon] in mind for anyone with a 3D printer. It’s a less complicated machinery [compared to a printer]. It doesn’t have the same amount of moving parts that a 3D printer has. There’s a rigidity that printers need to have. We don’t have to have a lot of weight. When it comes to price, it just ended up being [relatively low-cost]”.

The Photon uses lasers to scan objects measuring in at up to 190mm × 190mm × 250mm in high resolution and it exports in STL, OBJ, and PLY formats. Matterform says that the device can complete a scanning job in “around three minutes” on average, and it can be carried around like a mini suitcase when folded.

Of course you can find 3D printable files online, but you won’t find everything. For example if you have plans to 3D print something that’s lying around your house or want to use a clay model you have created in a cartoon, you might ponder that you should buy an affordable 3D scanner.

Are you interested in the Photon? Or are you waiting for more details about the MakerBot Digitizer?

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One of the best features on the Lumia 920 is its 8.7-megapixel camera which comes with the Nokia’s PureView label. Of course Samsung Galaxy S4 is certainly a big rival with its own stunning camera capabilities. This makes you wonder, which among the two devices is the best when it comes to video stabilization? Let’s take a look.

As you will see in the video, the Nokia 920 and the S4 were mounted on top of a toy car to test the performance of the two devices in capturing video on the move. The video is in Russian, but no need for any explanations as the video shows you what you need to know.

The video recorded on the S4 is pretty shaky and everything is blurry once the guy starts to pull the car. But on the 920, the OIS (optical image stabilisation) is certainly doing its job and the video is much more vivid. Not really a huge surprise but it’s nice to see how the 920 did against Samsung’s latest and greatest smartphone.

So what do you think of the Lumia’s camera versus the S4?

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The boffins at Fujitsu have have been scratching their heads trying to think of a better purpose for those front facing cameras on our smartphones, tablets and laptops. What they have come up with is a new imaging system which can calculate your pulse and help monitor health.

The system measures the amount of green light, which is absorbed by haemoglobin, reflected from your face to work out your blood-flow and calculate your pulse. The software can work using existing hardware and only requires users to hold still for 5 seconds to make it’s calculations.

Fujitsu aims to have the system adopted by device makers and also hopes it can be implemented to TV’s, mirrors and other household devices. What do you think of the idea, intrigued or not?

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They’re saying that the on-board camera will have a “triple sensor array” and its ability to take awesome pictures will be a big “selling point” for the device. This is in line with what Vic Gundotra of Google said last month, indicating that the company is “committed to making Nexus phones insanely great cameras.” I’m not sure if I would go so far as to say “insanely,” but smartphone camera tech is definitely evolving and getting a heck of a lot better, easily competing with some decent point and shoots on the market.

Let’s not forget that Google and Nikon are no strangers to one another. The Nikon Coolpix S800c is an Android-based camera and while it ran an older version of Android and it had its quirks, it represented a unique crossover point for the two companies. It brought smartphone tech into a camera and the Nexus 5 could go in exactly the opposite direction. The “three sensor” tech could put each of the sensor layers on top of one another, each with a smaller megapixel count, thus creating better color rendering and low light performance. This is potentially similar to HTC’s UltraPixel technology.

The rest of the rumored specs for the Nexus 5 fall in line with what we’ve heard. It’ll reportedly get a 5-inch 1080p display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor, 2GB of RAM, 8/16GB storage, and a massive 3140mAh battery.

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Apparently, Jarad S. Carr of Wisconsin wasn’t quite so wise, because he did exactly that. We don’t know if he actually bought the printer at Walmart, but that’s where he went to return a regular old inkjet printer. He didn’t present a receipt and the store staff refused to take the return. He raises some trouble, the store associates discover that inside the printer were some bad fakes of $100 bills printed with that printer. The staff call the cops and Carr was arrested.

I guess it goes to show you that the same criminal mastermind who tries to pass off fake Benjamins produced with a regular inkjet printer on regular paper is the same kind of criminal mastermind that would leave them in there when they try to return the printer. Without a receipt. Maybe he should have tried using a Nintendo DS instead. That really prints money, right?

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You got yourself a brand new car but don’t know anything about the dashboard. All you have to do is take out your smartphone and click a picture using the new MARS app from Boston-based PAR Works, provided you have the app in your device by the way. This unique app makes use of 3D augmented reality to allow you access to customized, tagged information about a product, building, street scene, or object.

The only thing that is required is that the augmented reality info available via the app must be added manually. So, if it’s the case of your new dashboard, someone should have labeled all the buttons and added info about what they do, and that info will be available to you via MARS.

So the next time you are trying to find a classroom in a school, you just have to take a picture of the building and the app will do the rest, given the school has used the technology to add an augmented reality overlay over the building. Obviously this is a new idea and isn’t in wide use yet, but the potential is there if such technology could become widely adopted.

The MARS app is certainly turning heads and is a finalist in the SXSW Interactive Awards. It is currently available for iOS users and an Android version will be launched at SXSW on March 10. So, are you interested in the new app? Share your thoughts below.

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Designed by Prox Dynamics of Norway, the Black Hornet is four inches long, one inch tall, and weighs 16 grams. There’s a tiny camera mounted on board that can send pictures and videos back to a handheld receiver up to a kilometre away, allowing soldiers to gain information about an area without having to directly risk the lives and safety of soldiers that would otherwise be tasked with that mission.

It helps that the Black Hornet is incredibly tiny and flies nearly silently, navigating its way around buildings to see if there is any danger. It can only fly at a maximum of 10 meters per second and the battery pack only lasts about 25 minutes, but that should be enough for some basic recon. It can act as an R/C helicopter or it can act as an autonomous drone based on GPS.

Yes, it’s expensive, but that’s military-spec tech for you. It’s ruggedized to handle the harsh conditions of the battlefield, including extreme heat and wind. The UK Military of Defense has placed an order for 160 units, totalling 20 million GBP. That works out to about $31.3 million or about $195,000 each.

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No, this isn’t another one of those Instagram-esque filter-laden camera apps. Instead, it is a suitable replacement for the native camera app, giving you much faster access to the different settings and options that you would normally find on a standalone camera. Need to change the white balance, adjust the autofocus, turn the flash on and off, or switch to a different scene? No problem. All of these kinds of settings are available right from the shutter-ready screen.

You can even customize the layout of this via the settings menu, but make sure you save one of those slots for the “settings” button; otherwise, there’s no real way of restoring that on-screen button without re-installing the app. You can also change the resolution, the exposure time, the focus mode, the camera mode, the ISO (100-3200) and the exposure compensation (up to a +/- 12-step range). And yes, there’s even manual focus, which isn’t terribly common on smartphones. And then there are even deeper settings for timers, bracketing, burst, time-lapse and so on.

CameraPro is $2.49 through the Windows Phone Store.

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It seems that all the camera manufacturers are considering the implementation of smartphone operating systems in their pocket shooters, and Polaroid is no exception. The latest rumor has a new 18MP camera coming down the pipes that will be powered by Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. And it’s doing the interchangeable lens thing.

This isn’t Polaroid’s first foray into this arena. You might remember the Polaroid SC1630 from earlier this year, but the leaked Polaroid IM1836 is supposed to take it to a new level. Rather than simply competing against point-and-shoots, it’ll tackle the likes of the Sony NEX series, the micro four-thirds format from Panasonic and Olympus, and other compact interchangeable lens systems.

The rumored specs include an 18.1-megapixel sensor, 3.5-inch touchscreen, Android 4.0, pop-up flash, Wi-Fi, HDMI, and a microSD slot. Some people say that it bears a striking resemblance to the Nikon 1 J2, so we might assume that it uses the same CX image sensor (13.2 x 8.8mm). That’s been one of the knocks against the Nikon 1 series in that its image sensor is far smaller than micro four-thirds (17.3 x 13mm) and even smaller than the APS-C sensor used on the Sony NEX series.

Even so, simply going with a mirrorless interchangeable lens format will give the Polaroid Android camera a leg up against other Android cameras like the Samsung Galaxy Camera and the Nikon S800c. Soon, in-camera editing, cellular connectivity, and social sharing will become the norm rather than unique selling points.

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