A research project at Stanford is creating an open-source programmable camera, dubbed the Frankencamera:
We are therefore building an open-source camera platform that runs Linux, is fully programmable (including its digital signal processor) and connected to the Internet, and accommodates SLR lenses and SLR-quality sensors. Our current prototype (3rd and 4th images above) is constructed from off-the-shelf parts, in some cases borrowed from dead cameras. It’s also ugly – hence the name.
Commercial cameras – whether point-and-shoot or DSLR – are too hard to hack into to do the several interesting things that enthusiasts want to do in-camera. But they can write custom code to get the Frankencamera to go well beyond clicking pictures:
… tone mapping for high dynamic range imaging, in-camera panoramic stitching, motion blur removal, handshake blur removal, post-capture refocusing,depth of field extension (not the same as refocusing), flash-noflash imaging, advanced video stabilization, dark flash photography, glare removal, dehazing.