I don't really buy this idea that it's not "really" a camera.
Think of it like this: A still camera has a number of small receptors. When you take a photograph, you wind up with a bunch of numbers that average the amount of light that hit each one. It's not a perfect record of the light that was really there-- does that count as a "real" picture? A video camera takes a series of slices at particular moments in time. Information about events that occur between those slices is lost, either blurred out of existence or ignored entirely. Does that count as "real" video?
So, this camera can record a single line once at a precise instant in time. If we want to turn that into a moving picture, we can either parallelize the camera, or serialize the event. So let's say we put together a hundred million of these cameras using mirrors and amplifiers and whatever else we need to record video of a single pulse of light happening once. Let's say we also use a single camera to record video of a hundred million pulses of light which we know will have a variance of less than the resolution of the camera. Let's say we crunch the data from both of these "cameras", and they come out as identical.
Which one is the "real" video?
Anyway, there's a much more salient reason why this wouldn't work for a moving object: As the man pointed out, at this rate, even a speeding bullet would not move perceptibly.
Think of it like this: A still camera has a number of small receptors. When you take a photograph, you wind up with a bunch of numbers that average the amount of light that hit each one. It's not a perfect record of the light that was really there-- does that count as a "real" picture? A video camera takes a series of slices at particular moments in time. Information about events that occur between those slices is lost, either blurred out of existence or ignored entirely. Does that count as "real" video?
So, this camera can record a single line once at a precise instant in time. If we want to turn that into a moving picture, we can either parallelize the camera, or serialize the event. So let's say we put together a hundred million of these cameras using mirrors and amplifiers and whatever else we need to record video of a single pulse of light happening once. Let's say we also use a single camera to record video of a hundred million pulses of light which we know will have a variance of less than the resolution of the camera. Let's say we crunch the data from both of these "cameras", and they come out as identical.
Which one is the "real" video?
Anyway, there's a much more salient reason why this wouldn't work for a moving object: As the man pointed out, at this rate, even a speeding bullet would not move perceptibly.