A camera is a device that records and stores images.

These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura (Latin for "dark chamber"), an early mechanism for projecting images. The modern camera evolved from the camera obscura. Cameras may work with the light of the visible spectrum or with other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. A camera generally consists of an enclosed hollow with an opening (aperture) at one end for light to enter, and a recording or viewing surface for capturing the light at the other end. A majority of cameras have a lens positioned in front of the camera's opening to gather the incoming light and focus all or part of the image on the recording surface. The diameter of the aperture is often controlled by a diaphragm mechanism, but some cameras have a fixed-size aperture. Most 20th century cameras used photographic film as a recording surface, while the majority of new ones now use an electronic image sensor. The still camera takes one photo each time the user presses the shutter button. A typical movie camera continuously takes 24 film frames per second as long as the user holds down the shutter button, or until the shutter button is pressed a second time. From its inception, the camera has been instrumental in the recording of still images from then-present surroundings, and further modifications led to the development of motion picture sequences in the late 19th century. Cameras and the exhibition of camera-captured images are widely used in both professional and consumer settings in the 21st century for both mass and interpersonal communication purposes.

Camera designs
[edit] Plate camera
The earliest cameras produced in significant numbers used sensitised glass plates and are now termed plate cameras. Light entered a lens mounted on a lens board which was separated from the plate by an extendible bellows. Many of these cameras, had controls to raise or lower the lens and to tilt it forwards or backwards to control perspective. Focussing of these plate cameras was by the use of a ground glass screen at the point of focus. Because lens design only allowed rather small aperture lenses, the image on the ground glass screen was faint and most photographers had a dark cloth to cover their heads to allow focussing and composition to be carried out more easily. When focus and composition were satisfactory, the ground glass screen was removed and a sensitised plate put in its place protected by a dark slide (photography). To make the exposure, the dark slide was carefully slid out and the shutter opened and then closed and the darkslide replaced. In current designs the plate camera is best represented by the view camera.

[edit] Large format camera

Main article: View camera The large format camera is a direct successor of the early plate cameras and remain in use for high quality photography and for technical, architectural and industrial

photography. There are three common types, the monorail camera, the field camera and the press camera. All use large format sheets of film, although there are backs for medium format 120-film available for most systems, and have an extensible bellows with the lens and shutter mounted on a lens plate at the front. These cameras have a wide range of movements allowing very close control of focus and perspective.

[edit] Medium format camera

Main article: Medium-format Medium-format cameras have a film size somewhere in between the large format cameras and the smaller 35mm cameras. Typically these systems use 120- or 220-film. The most common sizes being 6x4.5 cm, 6x6 cm and 6x7 cm. The designs of this kind of camera show greater variation than their larger brethren, ranging from monorail systems through the classic Hasselblad model with separate backs, to smaller rangefinder cameras. There are even compact amateur cameras available in this format.

[edit] Folding camera

The introduction of films enabled the existing designs for plate cameras to be made much smaller and for the base-plate to be hinged so that it could be folded up compressing the bellows. These designs were very compact and small models were dubbed Vest pocket cameras.

[edit] Box camera

Main article: Box camera Box cameras were introduced as a budget level camera and had few if any controls. The original box Brownie models had a small reflex viewfinder mounted on the top of the camera and had no aperture or focusing controls and just a simple shutter. Later models such as the Brownie 127 had larger direct view optical viewfinders together with a curved film path to reduce the impact of deficiencies in the lens.

[edit] Rangefinder camera

Main article: Rangefinder camera As camera and lens technology developed and wide aperture lenses became more common, range-finder cameras were introduced to make focussing more precise. The range finder has two separated viewfinder windows, one of which is linked to the focusing mechanisms and moved right or left as the focusing ring is turned. The two separate images are brought together on a ground glass viewing screen. When vertical lines in the object being photographed meet exactly in the combined image, the object is in focus. A normal composition viewfinder is also provided.

[edit] Single-lens reflex

Main article: Single-lens reflex camera

Olympus E-420 Four Thirds entry-level DSLR. In the single-lens reflex camera the photographer sees the scene through the camera lens. This avoids the problem of parallax which occurs when the viewfinder or viewing lens is separated from the taking lens. Single-lens reflex cameras have been made in several formats including 220/120 taking 8, 12 or 16 photographs on a 120 roll and twice that number of a 220 film. These correspond to 6x9, 6x6 and 6x4.5 respectively (all dimensions in cm). Notable manufacturers of large format SLR include Hasselblad, Mamiya, Bronica and Pentax. However the most common format of SLRs has been 35 mm and subsequently the migration to digital SLRs, using almost identical sized bodies and sometimes using the same lens systems. Almost all SLR used a front surfaced mirror in the optical path to direct the light from the lens via a viewing screen and pentaprism to the eyepiece. At the time of exposure the mirror flipped up out of the light path before the shutter opened. Some early cameras experimented other methods of providing through the lens viewing including the use of a semi transparent pellicle as in the Canon Pellix[16] and others with a small periscope such as in the Corfield Periflex series.[17]

[edit] Cin camera

Main article: Movie camera A cin camera or movie camera takes a rapid sequence of photographs on strips of film. In contrast to a still camera, which captures a single snapshot at a time, the cin camera takes a series of images, each called a "frame" through the use of an intermittent mechanism. The frames are later played back in a cin projector at a specific speed, called the "frame rate" (number of frames per second). While viewing, a person's eyes and brain merge the separate pictures to create the illusion of motion. The first cin camera was built around 1888 and by 1890 several types were being manufactured. The standard film size for cin cameras was quickly established as 35mm film and this remains in use to this day. Other professional standard formats include 70 mm film and 16mm film whilst amateurs film makers used 9.5 mm film, 8mm film or Standard 8 and Super 8 before the move into digital format. The size and complexity of cin cameras varies greatly depending on the uses required of the camera. Some professional equipment is very large and too heavy to be hand held whilst some amateur cameras were designed to be very small and light for singlehanded operation. In the last quarter of the 20th century camcorders supplanted film motion cameras for amateurs. Professional video cameras did the same for professional users around the turn of the century.

A tablet personal computer or tablet PC is a tablet-sized computer that also has the key features of a full-size personal computer. A tablet PC is essentially a small laptop computer, equipped with a rotatable touchscreen as an additional input device, and running a standard (or lightly adapted) PC operating system like Windows or Linux. The term was made popular with the Microsoft Tablet PC concept presented by Microsoft in 2001.[1] Today, the term tablet is also used to refer to computer-like devices operated primarily by a touch screen but not intended to run general PC operating systems or applications.

Contents

1 System software o 1.1 Microsoft Windows 1.1.1 Windows applications o 1.2 Linux 1.2.1 Android and Chrome OS 1.2.2 webOS 1.2.3 MeeGo o 1.3 Apple 1.3.1 Mac OS X Modbook 2 Display size trends 3 Timeline of tablet PC history 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

[edit] System software

[edit] Microsoft Windows
Following Windows for Pen Computing, Microsoft has been developing for tablets running Windows under the Microsoft Tablet PC name.[2] According to a 2001 Microsoft definition[3] of the term, "Microsoft Tablet PCs" are pen-based, fully functional x86 PCs with handwriting and voice recognition functionality. Tablet PCs use the same hardware as normal laptops but add support for pen input. For specialized support for pen input, Microsoft released Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. Today there is no tablet specific version of Windows but instead support is built in to both Home and Business versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. Tablets running Windows get the added functionality of using the touchscreen for mouse input, hand writing recognition, and gesture support. Following Tablet PC, Microsoft announced the UMPC initiative in 2006 which brought Windows tablets to a smaller, touch-centric form factor. This was relaunched in 2010 as Slate PC, to promote tablets running Windows 7, ahead of Apple's iPad launch.[4] Slate PCs are expected to benefit from mobile hardware advances derived from the success of the netbooks. While many tablet manufacturers are moving to the ARM architecture with lighter operating systems, Microsoft has stood firmly by Windows.[5][6][7] Though Microsoft

has Windows CE for ARM support it has kept its target market for the smartphone industry with Windows Mobile and the new Windows CE 6 based Windows Phone 7. Some manufacturers, however, still have shown prototypes of Windows CE-based tablets running a custom shell.[8] The succession of Windows Vista has meant that Tablet PC functionality no longer requires a separate edition; with the exception of Home Basic and Starter, Tablet PC support is built into all editions of Windows Vista. This extends the handwriting recognition, ink collection,[9] and additional input methods to any computer running Vista even if the input device is an external digitizer, a touch screen, or even a regular mouse. Vista also supports multi-touch functions and gestures (originally developed for the Microsoft Surface version of Vista) and is now usable by the public with the release of multi-touch tablets. Windows Vista also significantly improved handwriting recognition functionality with the introduction of a handwriting recognition personalization tool as well as an automatic handwriting learning tool. Tablet functionality is available in all editions of Windows 7 except the Starter edition. It introduces a new Math Input Panel that recognizes handwritten math expressions and formulas, and integrates with other programs. Windows 7 also significantly improved pen input and handwriting recognition by becoming faster, more accurate, and supportive of more languages, including East Asian writing systems. Personalized custom dictionaries help with the recognition of specialized vocabulary (like medical and technical terms), and text prediction speeds up the input process to make notetaking faster. Multi-touch technology is also available on some tablet PCs, enabling more advanced interaction using touch gestures with your fingers the same way a mouse is used.[10] Despite such advances, problems may arise with tablet functions of the OS, when, for instance, touch screen drivers are recognized as PS/2 mouse input rather than a touch input device. In such instances tablet functions may be unavailable or severely restricted in functionality. Windows 7 touch capability is built with Microsoft Surface technologies. This is a gesture and touch-centric UI enhancement that works with most current touch computers. Windows has a history of tablet technology including Windows XP Tablet PC Edition.[11][12] Tablet PC Edition is a superset of Windows XP Professional, the difference being tablet functionality, including alternate text input (Tablet PC Input Panel) and basic drivers for support of tablet PC specific hardware. Requirements to install Tablet PC Edition include a tablet digitizer or touchscreen device, and hardware control buttons including a Ctrl-Alt-Delete SAS (Secure Attention Sequence) shortcut button, scrolling buttons, and at least one user-configurable application button.
[edit] Windows applications

Applications developed for the tablet PC cater to the form factor and functionality available on the platform. Many forms of applications incorporate a pen-friendly user interface and/or the ability to hand write directly in the document or interface. A brief description of the applications included follows:
Experience Pack

Ink Desktop: an Active Desktop control designed to run in the background and allow the user to write directly on the desktop. Snipping Tool: a screen capture application which allows the tablet pen to be used to select a portion of the screen and then annotate it and save as a file or send in an email. Ink Art: a painting application developed by Ambient Design originally as ArtRage, licensed to Microsoft for release to Tablet PC users. Ink Crossword: a crossword application developed to mirror the experience of a paper crossword puzzle on a tablet PC. Media Transfer: a synchronization utility designed to download music, pictures, and videos from computers in the same network.

Education Pack

Ink Flash Cards: an application designed to assist memorization by using a flashcard approach, enabling the user to hand write their own flash cards and display them back in a slide show. Equation Writer: a recognition tool specializing in converting handwritten mathematical equations to a computer-generated image for pasting into other documents. GoBinder Lite: an organization and note-taking application developed by Agilix Labs. Hexic Deluxe: a game with a tablet PC specific gesture enabled for easier use with the tablet.

[edit] Linux

The Nokia N800

One early implementation of a Linux tablet was the ProGear by FrontPath. The ProGear used a Transmeta chip and a resistive digitizer. The ProGear initially came with a version of Slackware Linux, but could later be bought with Windows 98. Because these computers are general purpose IBM PC compatible machines, they can run many different operating systems. However, the device is no longer for sale and FrontPath has ceased operations. It is important to note that many touch screen sub-notebook computers can run any of several Linux distributions with little customization. X.org now supports screen rotation and tablet input through Wacom drivers, and handwriting recognition software from both the Qt-based Qtopia and GTK+-based Internet Tablet OS provide promising free and open source systems for future development. Open source note taking software in Linux includes applications such as Xournal (which supports PDF file annotation), Gournal (a Gnome based note taking application), and the Java-based Jarnal (which supports handwriting recognition as a built-in function). Before the advent of the aforementioned software, many users had to rely on on-screen keyboards and alternative text input methods like Dasher. There is a stand alone handwriting recognition program available, CellWriter, in which users must write letters separately in a grid.

A number of Linux based OS projects are dedicated to tablet PCs. Since all these are open source, they are freely available and can be run or ported to devices that conform to the tablet PC design. Maemo (rebranded MeeGo in 2010), a Debian Linux based graphical user environment, was developed for the Nokia Internet Tablet devices (770, N800, N810 & N900). It is currently in generation 5, and has a vast array of applications available in both official and user supported repositories. The Ubuntu Netbook Remix edition, as well as the Intel sponsored Moblin project, both have touchscreen support integrated into their user interfaces. Canonical Ltd has hinted at better supporting tablets with the Unity UI for Ubuntu 10.10.[13] TabletKiosk currently offers a hybrid digitizer / touch device running openSUSE Linux. It is the first device with this feature to support Linux.
[edit] Android and Chrome OS Main articles: Android (operating system) and Google Chrome OS

Google's Linux-based Android operating system has been targeted by manufacturers for the tablet computer market following its success on smartphones due to its open nature and support for ARM systems, but some systems, like Toshiba's AC100[14] are more closely related to a tablet PC. There is talk of tablet support from Google coming to its web-centric Chrome OS.[15][16] Some vendors such as Motorola are delaying deployment of their tablet computers until 2011, after Android is reworked to include more tablet features.[17][18] Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) is the latest version of the Android platform. It is optimized specifically for devices with larger screen sizes, mainly tablets, and has access to the Android Market. Android is the software stack for mobile devices that includes operating system, middleware and key applications.
[edit] webOS Main article: webOS

Initially developed by Palm, Inc. in January 2009 as the Palm OS, webOS was purchased by HP to be their proprietary operating system running on the Linux kernel. Versions 1.0 to 2.1 of webOS uses the patched Linux 2.6.24 kernel. HP has continued to develop the webOS platform for use in multiple products, including smartphones, tablet PCs, and printers. HP announced plans on March 2011 for a version of webOS by the end of 2011 to run within the Microsoft Windows operating system to be used in HP desktop and notebook computers in 2012. HP TouchPad, the first addition to HP's tablet family, has been shipped out with versions 3.0.2.[19] Version 3.0.2 gives the tablet support for multitasking, applications, and HP Synergy. HP have also claimed in its webcatalog to support over 200 apps with its release.[20] On August 18, 2011, HP announced that it would discontinue production of all webOS devices.[21][22]

[edit] MeeGo Main articles: Maemo and MeeGo

Nokia entered the tablet space with the Nokia 770 running Maemo, a Debian-based Linux distribution custom-made for their Nokia Internet Tablet line. The product line continued with the N900 which is the first to add phone capabilities. Intel, following the launch of the UMPC, started the Mobile Internet Device initiative, which took the same hardware and combined it with a Linux operating system custom-built for portable tablets. Intel co-developed the lightweight Moblin operating system following the successful launch of the Atom CPU series on netbooks. MeeGo is a new operating system developed by Intel and Nokia supports Netbooks, Smartphones and tablet PCs. In 2010, Nokia and Intel combined the Maemo and Moblin projects to form MeeGo. The first[clarification needed] MeeGo powered tablet PC is the Neofonie WeTab. The WeTab uses an extended version of the MeeGo operating system called WeTab OS. WeTab OS adds runtimes for Android and Adobe AIR and provides a proprietary user interface optimized for the WeTab device.[citation needed]

[edit] Apple
[edit] Mac OS X Modbook

Apple has never sold a tablet PC computer running Mac OS X, although OS X does have support for handwriting recognition via Inkwell. However, Apple sells the iOSbased iPad, introduced in 2010 and iPad 2, released in 2011. Before the introduction of the iPad, Axiotron introduced the Modbook, a heavily modified Apple MacBook, Mac OS X-based tablet computer at Macworld in 2007.[23] The Modbook used Apple's Inkwell handwriting and gesture recognition, and used digitization hardware from Wacom. To support the digitizer on the integrated tablet, the Modbook was supplied with a third-party driver called TabletMagic. Wacom does not provide drivers for this device.