Japan's massive earthquake has affected the production and distribution of an important component in many cellphone cameras, the CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) image sensor, from Sony and Toshiba.

Toshiba's Image Sensor fabrication facility in Iwate, Japan, has been shut down because of the earthquake from which much of Japan is still working to recover, according to the technology research firm IHS iSuppli. Toshiba's Iwate plant manufactures logic chips and CMOS sensors for cellphone cameras.

Sony, on the other hand, has had to delay the delivery of its CMOS sensors to cellphone manufacturers, IHS iSuppli said in a report issued Thursday morning.

IHS iSuppli did not have information on how long Toshiba's plant would be closed or how long Sony's sensor deliveries would be backed up and officials at both consumer electronics companies were not available Thursday morning to comment on the firm's report.

In 2010, Toshiba was the fifth-largest supplier of image sensors for phones with an about 12% share of worldwide revenue, according to an estimate from IHS iSuppli. Last year, Sony came in sixth with about 8% share of the global market for image sensors, the research firm said.

Combined, Toshiba and Sony made up about 20% of the cellphone image sensor market in terms of revenue, IHS iSuppli said.

"With [its] low cost and easy integration with other electronics, CMOs has long been the technology of choice for cellphone cameras," said Pamela Tufegdzic, an IHS analyst, in a statement. "The Japan earthquake and subsequent logistical challenges have disrupted a portion of the supply of this key component."

IHS iSuppli said that a replacement part, albeit a higher-end option, is available in the form of another image sensor technology called CCD (charge-coupled device), which has been unaffected so far.

Sony and Toshiba are major CCD suppliers, as are Japanese competitors Fujifilm, Panasonic and Sharp, the firm said.

"Because of their higher image quality, CCDs are commonly employed in digital still cameras," IHS iSuppli said in a statement. "In contrast, CMOS sensors predominately are used in cellphones and often in other devices where the camera is secondary to other functions."

Digital camera manufacturers Altek and Ability Enterprise, both based in Taiwan and both of which make cameras for major Japanese brands, told IHS iSuppli that they have yet to see any decrease in CCD supply from Japan.

Ability receives about 90% of its CCDs from Sony and Altek buys about 70% to 80% of its CCDs from Sharp, IHS iSuppli said.

"Sharp's CCD plants in Japan are far from the worst-hit zones, while Sony's CCD plants are located in Thailand," the research firm said."Because of this, CCD supply in the future should not face any immediate supply issues. The situation may change over the long term, however, as CCD makers could experience challenges with their own upstream material suppliers and encounter problems with transportation and power."

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Twitter.com/nateog

Photo: A Sony logo is displayed at an electronics shop in Tokyo. In the wake of Japan's earthquake, Sony has had to delay the delivery of one type of cellphone camera sensor to manufacturers. Credit: Kim Kyung-Hoon / Reuters

Lady Gaga descended on the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas for the second year in a row as the creative director of Polaroid. But this year, Gaga showed off products she helped design that are headed for retail this year.

The Gaga lineup is branded Polaroid Grey Label by Haus of Gaga and is made up of a mobile printer, dubbed the Polaprinter GL10, an aluminum rimmed instant-camera and a pair of sunglasses with a camera and two OLED screens behind the lenses.

The reveal of the three items came with applause and a few yelps from a crowd of a couple of thousand standing around Polaroid's booth -- a bit of a rarity at CES, where most media members don't clap much. Then again, Gaga is a rock star and not an average consumer electronics executive.

The sunglasses, called the Polarez GL20, and the camera, known as the Polaroid GL30, are prototypes, Gaga said, but both will arrive in stores around holiday season 2011. No prices have been set for the glasses or the camera.

The Polaprinter GL10, however, is a retail-ready product and will hit stores in May for $149.99, said Katie Linendoll, a Polaroid spokeswoman.

 Gaga said the glasses were inspired by a pair of specs she made from iPod screens for a concert. The two 1.7-inch OLED screens in the glasses sit below a user's eyes and facing outward, so the image can be seen through the glasses but not by the wearer.

The earpieces on the glasses house a USB drive where images taken by a small camera sitting on the glasses' nosepiece are saved.

The GL30 camera has a screen on it so pictures can be viewed before being printed, a feature not found on the Polaroids of the past, as well as the ability to connect to any other picture-taking device via Bluetooth to print photos from other gadgets.

The ability to share photos from a smart phone or tablet, via Bluetooth, is a feature that's also making its way to the mobile printer.

Sharing a photo with the GL10 printer, and printing it using ink-free technology, takes about 40 seconds. The printer will also be able to connect to other cameras and computers by way of USB.

When the GL10 ships, an Android app will be available that can sync phones to the printer and add borders and filter images before printing.

Polaroid printer apps for the Apple iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Phone handsets will arrive later this year, Linendoll said.

The GL30 camera, too, will use mobile apps to modify photos it snaps, but those apps may or may not be the same as the apps for the printer, she said, adding that the same popular smart phone platforms will be supported.

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/nateog

Top photo: Lady Gaga sends a photo from her BlackBerry smart phone to the Polaroid Polaprinter GL10 she helped design, held by Polaroid Chairman Bobby Sager, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Credit: Nathan Olivarez-Giles / Los Angeles Times.

Middle image: Polaroid Grey Label printer, left, sunglasses and camera from Haus of Gaga. Credit: Polaroid

Bottom photo: Lady Gaga draws a larger crowd at the Polaroid booth. Credit: David Becker/Getty Images

Sony announced at CES that it is putting 3-D on just about every visually related product it makes, with a full line of 3-D point-and-shoot cameras, 3-D camcorders, 3-D laptops and someday 3-D screens that sit inches away from your eyes.

The electronics giant touted its product line for 2011, "a year in which 3-D becomes personal," with presentations by Sony executives, led by Chief Executive Howard Stringer at a news conference at the Las Vegas Convention Center as a part of the Consumer Electronics Show.

And Sony isn't just hoping you'll buy its 3-D movies and watch its 3-D TV channel -- called 3Net and launching in three months with assistance from the Discovery Channel and Imax -- it's hoping you'll make some 3-D content of your own, with its products of course.

Glasses will be required to see the 3-D images on Sony's Vaio F Series laptop, as well as the video and photos captured by its Cyber-Shot cameras. 

However, on the back of its Flip cam rival, the Bloggie 3-D, is a glasses-free 3-D screen 2.4 inches big, which plays back the depth-added videos and photos a user shoots. And one model of Sony's 3-D camcorders, the HDR-TD10, has a glasses-free 3.5-inch display.

The HDR-TD10 records in full high definition, with a 1080p resolution, and 3-D videos a consumer makes can be viewed on a 3-D TV via an HDMI cable. The camcorder will ship in April for about $1,500, Sony said. It will feature two lenses, two processors and two image sensors to record the 3-D images, and the camera packs a 64-gigabyte hard drive.

The 3-D Bloggie, which also records in full 1080p HD, will sell for about $250 and feature an 8-gigabyte flash drive and a 5-megapixel resolution and arrive in stores in April as well.

A Vaio laptop with a 3-D-compatible screen, dubbed the F Series, will arrive in stores later this year for about $1,700. The F Series will feature a full 1080p HD screen of 16 inches, with a TV-style 16:9 aspect ratio. Other features include a built-in Blu-ray drive and an Intel Core i7 processor. Pre-orders are being taken for the 3-D laptops at www.sonystyle.com/fseries.

Sony displayed a glasses-free 3-D screen on a portable Blu-ray player, but that was just a prototype, as was a 3-D head-mounted display that looked somewhat like the eyepiece worn by the comic book character Cyclops from X-Men.

The head-mounted prototype is made up of two OLED displays that send a unique image to each eye to create the 3-D effect.

Sony also showed off -- at its CES booth and not onstage -- three prototype glasses-free TVs for home use: a 24.5-inch OLED screen and a 46-inch and a 56-inch LCD set.

Kazuo "Kaz" Hirai, head of Sony Computer Entertainment, made some non-3-D teases, saying PlayStation-related products in the mobile space would be arriving later in the year, and he said Sony was working on a tablet.

But Hirai and Sony offered no details on the tablet, what it would look like or when it would arrive, just that it was being worked on.

Sony also announced a monthly subscription music streaming service called Music Unlimited, which will be offered this year through its Qriocity streaming media platform on its Internet-connected TVs and PlayStation 3. Just how much the service will cost, or an official release date, wasn't disclosed.

Aside from 3-D, Stringer said Internet-connected TVs were Sony's other main consumer push, estimating that more than 50 million TVs will be Internet-enabled worldwide through Sony's PlayStation 3, Wi-Fi Blu-ray players and Internet-connected TVs.

"This is a significant base of connected products," he said. "Size does matter."

Before getting into the flurry of 3-D-related announcements, the presentation was started with a scene in 3-D from the Sony Pictures movie "The Green Hornet," which hits theaters Jan. 14.

After the preview, which the crowd watched with 3-D glasses, a rotating platform on the stage showcased the Black Beauty car from the movie, with Stringer and "Green Hornet" stars Seth Rogen and Jay Chou.

Standing alongside the two Hollywood celebrities, Stringer said with little laughs, "You've got to think that this car makes James Bond's Aston Martin look sissy, doesn't it?"

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles
twitter.com/nateog

Photos: Top, the Sony HDR-TD10 and, bottom, the Bloggie 3-D. Credit: Sony

In the name of art, New York University photography professor Wafaa Bilal is walking around with a camera implanted in the back of his head.

It’s a situation that invites pithiness: Cyclops would be jealous. It’s the most high-tech third eye ever. Next adopters: mothers?

But Bilal, an assistant arts professor at the university’s Tisch School, underwent the yearlong project because he was commissioned to do so. The images, automatically taken once a minute and then streamed live online starting next week, will be showcased at the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art when it opens Dec. 30 in Qatar.

He’s calling the project “The 3rd I.” His past efforts have also been controversial. Once, he inserted an avatar of himself playing a suicide bomber into a video game that he called Virtual Jihadi.

But while devoted to his craft, playing host to a camera hasn’t been easy for Bilal, he told the Wall Street Journal.

The 10-megapixel camera, 2 inches in diameter, was attached to his head about two weeks ago in a “transdermal implant” while he was under local anesthesia. But when three titanium plates were inserted under the skin on his head  and then the camera screwed onto the attached posts, Bilal wasn’t at a hospital.

The process –- videotaped, of course –- took place at a piercing studio.

And since then, sleeping has been a hassle. And he’s had to cover up the camera -- which looks like a silver fire alarm -- with a lens cap while on campus to protect student and staff privacy.

-- Tiffany Hsu

Photo: Tina Fineberg/Associated Press

Camcorder as fashion accessory? That’s new – although the mini digital camcorder from IRes Technology Corp. looks more pocket protector than glam accessory.  

But the company appears to be aiming for convenience. You can wear the uCorder on your shirt pocket with an integrated clip or on a lanyard, which is included with the camera.

Referred to as "the modern day pen," the uCorder takes away the burden of carting around your camcorder. It could be useful if you want to capture a series of moments during a high-speed or high-intensity event (on a roller-coaster, para-gliding, bungee-jumping, race-car driving).

The IRDC150 model is 1 GB and can record up to six hours of audio and video, while the IRDC250 is 2 GB and can record up to seven hours of video.

Although the uCorder out beats most of the flip camcorders we looked at in terms of recording length (typically only one to two hours of recording time), the biggest downside is that if you choose to hold the camera, there's no screen that flips out to watch what is being recorded. 

Still, it may not be too long before we reach for a camera the same way we reach for a belt or necklace.

-- Zohreen Adamjee

twitter.com/Zohreen
 

Does it really matter that the LCD TV has a contrast ratio of 40,000:1 or that the digital camera has a 12-megapixel resolution?

David Colker gets to the bottom of these befuddling questions ahead of the holiday shopping season. He offers an in-depth gadget guide that doesn't make suggestions about what to buy but about how to buy.

--Peter Pae

Who needs friends to help take pictures when you have the new DualView camera? Credit: Samsung.

Think of it as the digital camera for the lonely.

Samsung today debuted a camera with a view screen on the front as well as on the back. And why would people want this DualView camera, as Samsung calls it?

To take pictures of themselves.

"The growing popularity of social networking sites has given rise to the self-portrait," Samsung said in its news release, "with many consumers turning their digital cameras on themselves."

Many of us who have used social networking or dating sites can relate, holding a camera at arms length in front of ourselves while snapping a picture. The results are seldom pretty, but usually better than camera shots taken in mirrors, complete with flash that makes it look like the person was caught in an inadvertent pyrotechnics display.

The DualView is supposed to eliminate those hassles, but at a price. The basic model will carry a suggested retail price tag of $300 when it goes on sale next month. An enhanced model, with larger back display will be $350.  

-- David Colker