If you thought you looked cool wearing Google Glass before, wait till you see this.
Google has been awarded a patent that allows “a computing device, such as a head-mountable device (HMD), to capture and process images in response to a user placing their hands in, and then withdrawing their hands from, a frame formation”
In other words, Google wants you to be able snap pictures with Google Glass by doing that little frame thing with your fingers.
Here’s the actual text of the patent:
Embodiments described herein may help a computing device, such as a head-mountable device (HMD), to capture and process images in response to a user placing their hands in, and then withdrawing their hands from, a frame formation. For example, an HMD may analyze image data from a point-of-view camera on the HMD, and detect when a wearer holds their hands in front of their face to frame a subject in the wearer’s field of view. Further, the HMD may detect when the wearer withdraws their hands from such a frame formation and responsively capture an image. Further, the HMD may determine a selection area that is being framed, within the wearer’s field of view, by the frame formation. The HMD may then process the captured image based on the frame formation, such as by cropping, white-balancing, and/or adjusting exposure.
Google isn’t limiting the cool gestures to finger frames. The company wants users to be able to take different-shaped photos by framing in different ways – make a rectangle frame and take a rectangular picture, or make a circle with your fingers and take a circular picture, and so on and so forth.
More or less awkward than saying “OK Glass, take a picture” on the subway? You be the judge.
Of course, this is just a patent. There’s no way to know if this will actually make it into the next generation of Google Glass – but it does show Google’s thought process.
And Google wants to make you oh so cool.
Images via USPTO, h/t Quartz