Chinese smartphone company Oppo has confirmed that it's working on "10x lossless zoom" technology that would give you a 15.9-159mm equivalent zoom capability on a handset to be released sometime this year. There's also wide-zone biometrics allowing the whole screen to act as a fingerprint sensor.
Calling the telephoto capability a zoom lens might be stretching things; what's really happening is that there's three cameras on board: a wide-angle 15.9mm, a primary "ultra clear master" camera of indeterminate focal length, and a third camera with a 159mm telephoto lens for long-distance shooting, which uses a "peep up" periscope structure to fit in the smartphone body.
So yes, you'll get lossless shots at three different focal lengths, fulfilling Oppo's press release promise of "lossless zoom in a variety of zoom ranges," but anything in between will be produced via electrickery and probably lossy.
There will be dual image stabilization on the medium and telephoto cameras, helping control camera shake, but there's no information yet on what the apertures for these cameras will be, so the stabilization may have to combat long shutter speeds.
The technology was introduced at Oppo's own 2019 Future Technology Communication Conference, but won't be "showcased in full" until Mobile World Congress in February.
At the same time, Oppo revealed that it's got some wide zone optical fingerprint recognition tech in the works that will turn the entire screen into a fingerprint sensor. This allows things like two-finger security, which the company says is 50,000 times more secure than a one-finger system.
Both of these technologies, says Oppo, will make it into consumer handsets to be released sometime in 2019.
Source: Oppo