“On June 16, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals one of the next chapters for Apple’s FaceTime videoconferencing application,” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple.
“Simply put, Apple understands that in this mobile world that we’re now living in, FaceTime videoconferencing won’t always take place on your nice stable iMac desktop but rather on the go,” Purcher reports. “Apple’s patent discusses fine tuning FaceTime videoconferencing so as to take advantage of face recognition software that is able to figure out where the center of your mobile display is while you’re moving about”
Purcher reports, “In theory it sounds interesting, but it’s one of those features that you’re going to have to test out yourself when it arrives – just to see if Apple has hit the mark on this one. Stabilizing video is going to be important feature going forward. And if you’ve ever shot video on an iOS device before, then you’re fully aware that we need better stabilization technology badly! ”
Much more in the full article, including Apple’s patent application illustrations, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lava_Head_UK” for the heads up.]
Presumably the big advantage of this is that a more stable image will compress much better than a rapidly changing image. That would be an important issue with using FaceTime on a GSM link.
But this very computation intense technology; it will eat the battery faster. The software maybe is already there, but Apple waits for more effective hardware for this.
With technology like Adobe Warp (http://goo.gl/Npt60), this type of thing seems like a reality. Of course, the iPhone doesn’t have all the computing power of a workstation, but the video is much simpler.
“The girl. How much for the girl”?
Why the girl? That black shirt does very little to enhance her obviously very small cleavage
Ahem. Cheesecake aside:
Apple has technology similar to Warp already built into iMovie. So take the shaky video from your iOS device, and see what iMovie can do with it.
I’m for better stabilization. It’s not just an Apple problem, but still, I hope that they could really work on this. I realize that whole Blair Witch thing of filminig is cool, but it’s gets tiresome. For now, having it for FaceTime is a start.
“we need better stabilization technology badly!”
Yeah. I think so. But I also doubt this was one of Apple’s highest priorities in their current set of camera enabled devices. Get nice cameras out on the market, THEN worry about stabilization. These are aren’t exactly professional camera devices. That’s why I also own a professional camera device. 😉
This may already be in FaceTime. The patent was from 2009. FT already has great stabilizing technology. I have used video chat for over ten years, FT blows everything else away. When someone had quick movements on a desktop cam you would get pixillation, not with FT. I have used FT”s rear cam to show people around my house and it came out good. Putting this patent out now may signal that Apple is finally going to open this up like SJ said they would.