Click photos at speed of light with this camera.

An inexpensive multi-purpose 'nano-camera' that can operate at the speed of light has been developed by a team of MIT researchers, including Indian-origin scientists. 

The $ 500 camera could be used in medical imaging and collision-avoidance detectors for cars, and to improve the accuracy of motion tracking and gesture-recognition devices used in interactive gaming. 

The three-dimensional camera was developed by researchers in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. 

The camera is based on "Time of Flight" technology in which the location of objects is calculated by how long it takes a light signal to reflect off a surface and return to the sensor. 

However, unlike existing devices based on this technology, the new camera is not fooled by rain, fog, or even translucent objects, said co-author Achuta Kadambi. 

"Using the current state of the art, such as the new Kinect, you cannot capture translucent objects in 3-D," said Kadambi, a graduate student at MIT. 

"That is because the light that bounces off the transparent object and the background smear into one pixel on the camera. Using our technique you can generate 3D models of translucent or near-transparent objects," Kadambi added. 

In a conventional Time of Flight camera, a light signal is fired at a scene, where it bounces off an object and returns to strike the pixel. 

Since the speed of light is known, it is simple for the camera to calculate the distance the signal has travelled and therefore the depth of the object it has been reflected from. 

The new device uses an encoding technique commonly used in the telecommunications industry to calculate the distance a signal has travelled, said Ramesh Raskar, an associate professor of media arts and sciences. 

Raskar was the leader of the Camera Culture group within the Media Lab, which developed the method alongside Kadambi, Refael Whyte, Ayush Bhandari, and Christopher Barsi at MIT and Adrian Dorrington and Lee Streeter from the University of Waikato in New Zealand. 

In 2011 Raskar's group unveiled a trillion-frame-per-second camera capable of capturing a single pulse of light as it travelled through a scene. 

The camera does this by probing the scene with a femtosecond impulse of light, then uses fast but expensive laboratory-grade optical equipment to take an image each time. This "femto-camera" costs around $ 500,000 to build. 

In contrast, the new " nano-camera" probes the scene with a continuous-wave signal that oscillates at nanosecond periods. 

This allows the team to use inexpensive hardware -- off-the-shelf light-emitting diodes (LEDs) can strobe at nanosecond periods, for example - meaning the camera can reach a time resolution within one order of magnitude of femtophotography while costing just $500.

Now Android will soon see its rival Tizen.

Most mobile phone users have never heard of Tizen. Neither have car owners or anyone with a fridge.

Samsung wants to change that.

The South Korean electronics giant is in a quiet push to make its Tizen operating system a part of the technology lexicon as familiar as Google's Androidor Apple's iOS. Its ambition doesn't stop there. Samsung sees the software in your car, fridge and television too.

The first developer conference in Asia for Tizen wrapped up on 12th November after a two-day run, bringing together app developers and Tizen backers from Samsung, Intel and mobile operators.

Samsung did not announce a Tizen device, but it made a pitch for developers to create apps for the mobile operating system that is yet to be seen in the market. Samsung promised to give out $4 million cash to the creators of the best Tizen apps.

Samsung supplied about one third of the smartphones sold worldwide in the third quarter, nearly all of them running on Google's Android. Its early bet on Google's free-of-charge operating system served Samsung well and the company's rise to top smartphone seller also helped Android become the most used mobile platform in the world. According to Localytics, 63% of all Android mobile devices in use are made by Samsung.

But while Samsung was wildly successful with selling its Galaxy phones and tablets, it had little success in locking Galaxy device users into music, messaging and other Samsung services. Google, however, benefited from more people using its search service, Google Play app and other Google mobile applications on Galaxy smartphones. Owners of Galaxy devices remain for the most part a slave to Google's Android update schedule and its rules.

About nine in every 10 smartphone users are tied to either Google's Android or Apple's iPhone ecosystems, generating profit for Google and Apple every time they purchase a game or application on their smartphone.

That is partly why Samsung wants to expand its control beyond hardware to software, by building its own mobile operating system.

"With only hardware, its influence is limited,'' said Kang Yeen-kyu, an associate research fellow at state-run Korea Information Society Development Institute. "Samsung's goal is to establish an ecosystem centered on Samsung.''

The consolidation of global technology companies in the last few years reflects such trends. Apple has always made its own operating system for the iPhone. Google Inc. acquired Motorola Mobility in 2011 and Microsoft announced in September its plan to buy Nokia, leaving Samsung the only major player in the smartphone market that does not make its own operating system.

Samsung executives told analysts last week that the company plans to beef up its software competitiveness through acquisitions and splashing cash on the development of mobile content and services.

But Tizen's start appears bumpy. Samsung said earlier this year the first Tizen phone would hit the market this fall but it has not materialized. Samsung declined to comment on release schedules.