Samsung have developed a new camera sensor technology that captures both image and depth simultaneously. This new technology could be baked into smartphones and other devices with built-in cameras, where it could give Kinect-like gesture hand control.

This would lead to the obvious functions someone could use with this technology, without having to touch the screen whatsoever. The new technology reportedly uses a CMOS sensor, with red, blue and green pixels, combined with an additional z-pixel for capturing depth.

The new Samsung technology captures images at 1920x720 resolution using its traditional RGB array, but it can also capture a depth image at a resolution of 480x360 with the z-pixel. It achieves its depth capabilities by a special process where the z-pixel is located beneath the RGB pixel array. Samsung have then placed a special barrier between the RGB and z pixels, allowing the light they capture to give the effect that the z-pixel is three times its actual size.