A company called Foveon, Inc. has developed a new imaging sensor which should radically improve the quality of images from devices such as digital cameras. Standard sensors have separate sensors for the red, green, and blue pixels, and the devices that incorporate these sensors must do complicated post-processing of the captured data to render the final image that we download. The new “X3″ sensors will capture all three color components within a single sensor. Less processing means you get an image that is truer to the original source, with less chance of artifacts being introduced.
Update: Here is another article about the Foveon X3.
That sounds great… once these new sensors make it out into the mass marketplace, digital photography should be even more rewarding than it is now!