The Pi camera module
A webcam uses a USB port for interfacing with a computer. That is why we can use it with any computer that has a USB port. The Pi camera modules (also known as Pi camera boards) are sensors that are specifically manufactured for RPi boards. The Raspberry Pi Foundation and many other third-party manufacturers produce them. Basically, they are PCBs with a specialized image sensor on them (that is why they are known as Pi camera boards).
The Pi camera board does not have a USB port. It connects to Raspberry Pi through a Camera Serial Interface (CSI) interface strip. Because of the dedicated connection that uses CSI, the performance of a Pi camera board is much better than a USB webcam. We can use Python 3 with a Pi camera module connected to the RPi to capture videos and still images programmatically. It is not possible to use the Pi camera board with any computer other than a Raspberry Pi (and a select few single-board computers that support connectivity with...