Charles Chi, Executive Chairman of Lytro, has revealed that the company may be interested in incorporating its new camera technology into smartphones, during a recent interview with PC World. Chi also described his company’s new sensor in greater detail, and talked at length about its purportedly superior battery life.

Called “shoot first, focus later”, the Lytro’s technology allows users to capture fields of light rather than a standard image like most cameras do. This can do away with blurry images and allow users to tap on an area to focus a picture after the light field has already been captured.

In order to gain a strong foothold in the smartphone market, Lytro would be looking at licensing agreements that would give interested smartphone manufacturers permission to use the technology on their devices. Companies like Sony and Samsung have a long history of developing their own camera technology, so we suspect players like HTC and Motorola would be among those interested in incorporating Lytro’s unique Light Field capture system into Android powered phones. Here is what Charles Chi said:

“If we were to apply the technology in smartphones, that ecosystem is, of course, very complex, with some very large players there. It’s an industry that’s very different and driven based on operational excellence. For us to compete in there, we’d have to be a very different kind of company. So if we were to enter that space, it would definitely be through a partnership and a codevelopment of the technology, and ultimately some kind of licensing with the appropriate partner.”

Source - PC World