How often do you need one of those auto-ma-whatsits anyway? They're really only good for a few blocks of downtown where the streets are flat cobblestone. They're useless on most trails. Just get a higher resolution horse and be happy with it.

> How often do you need one of those auto-ma-whatsits anyway?

Every day.

If you want to buy, say furniture, a big barrier of web shopping is that you cannot automatically reason about their dimensions, because they are not exact enough (and even more seriously, they are usually available only as free text).

The 3D scanning technology would enable products that are add-ons to objects where the original manufacturer did not see value in adding an interface. If I can scan my car interior, I can attach my GPS to nearly any surface "perfectly". This gives aftermarket products very nice finish with a much lower cost.

You can even imagine previewing the furniture "live" in your apartment. I've been thinking about this for a while and Ikea made the first step with their 2014 catalogue. Ikea's version is pretty limited though, but that's a first step.

How often do you need to take panoramic pictures? Not that often, but it's fun and gimmicky enough that it's on the iPhone.

If (when) we can make a cheap and small sensor that can provide depth data to the camera to make cool looking 3D pictures, it'll likely find its way on smartphone cameras.

In 2050, will our pictures still be 2D arrays of RGB pixels?

Perhaps more to the point, how often do you "need" to take pictures at all? Smartphone cameras have proliferated even though most people don't "need" to be able to take pictures of their food or whatever.

Panorama thing is a software solution, it doesn't require any additional hardware.