Microsoft-sponsored research on low power image sensor is now published as a patent application US20140232932 "Energy-proportional image sensor" by Robert LiKamWa, Nissanka Arachchige Bodhi Priyantha, Matthai Philipose, Lin Zhong, and Paramvir Bahl. Basically, it says that all the circuits need be to in power down mode during the idle time, and the resolution needs to be lowered when not necessary:
This is only a power management that is very common and has been used in the past for a lot of low power devices.
ReplyDeleteThis is the same that say: "If you will not use something, power off this until you need".
Even standby consume power. It's better to turn off such blocks that are not used or when aren't used.
I don't see any key idea that can be patented in this algorithm.
The patent war is very useless in most of the cases.