The problem with selfies is not that people take too many – it’s that they don’t take enough.
That’s the implication of a patent granted to Google on Tuesday that solves perhaps the most pressing problem with self-shot portraits: you can’t take them when you’re playing soccer, or dancing, or bashing someone in the face.
“Users may take self-images (colloquially ‘selfies’) and share the images using various communication modalities,” the patent says. “It may be difficult, though, for users ‘on-the-go’ to take and edit self-images particularly in relation to action shots of users engaged in activities such as playing sports, dancing, hiking, off-road driving, wake surfing, and so forth.”
So, let’s say you want a photo of yourself playing tennis. Without the technology, you could put your phone on a tripod, set the camera timer to shoot on burst after 10 seconds, run back onto the court and receive a serve, hoping you’ll get an image that captures a heroic moment, which you probably won’t. So you do it again. And again. And then you have 400 photos and in the only dramatic one your face wears the grimace of a petulant baby.
Enter Google, with the smart selfie. Now, you put your phone on a tripod, or as the patent also suggests, perhaps a table or a rock. You also have another device, which could be a wristband or a gadget in your pocket or “integrated with clothing items like hats, shoes, shirts, and pants.” That device has various sensors that monitor body movements.
To make sure the selfie-taker (who could also use the system to shoot selfie-video) doesn’t end up with hundreds of worthless images, the phone and device would work together to identify critical moments in the activity, such as when you overhead-slam a tennis ball so powerfully it’s like to pass right through your opponent: click goes the camera shutter.
“Movement of a tennis racquet or other item and a velocity trigger of the movement may be defined for capturing associated action, such as hitting of a tennis ball with a stroke of the racquet,” the patent says.
For certain sports, the categories of moments would be pre-set, while for other activities more generic programming would separate the highs from the lows as the sensors record every “kick, jump, punch, swing (or) skip.”
Google, like most tech companies, patents many technologies that never reach the market, so the fate of this one is yet to be seen.
Image: Drawing from Google’s smart-selfie patent (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office)
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