Olympus have now announced they will also enter this new genre of a basic camera without viewfinders or memory cards to be controlled by smartphones which will store the images via WiFi.

It is an extension of their current Micro Four Thirds camera technology which already allows one to view a live image that their camera is seeing through their smartphone and select an AF point and remotely control the camera with the image being sent back to the smartphone.

Obviously, if this is all one is doing, one does not need a viewfinder or memory card on their camera and you just need a cheaper “camera module” with a lens – hence the “Open Platform” technology.

I suspect they will also extend this technology to the Google Glasses-like patent they have registered – so you might control the camera using your glasses and the image then gets saved to the smartphone in your pocket.

It may open up all sorts of possibilities – although these probably can be achieved already with existing cameras.

However, the “Open Platform” is aimed at allowing 3rd party developers to create their own apps to control the cameras and come up with potentially novel applications.

see http://opc.olympus-imaging.com/en/index.html