A new camera that attaches to a smartphone shows the potential for advanced sensing technology that could someday come standard on mobile devices.
"Surround-See" is a user-facing camera that attaches to your phone to give the device peripheral vision, New Scientist reported. This special camera combined with an app, empowers the phone to monitor and track your environment, as shown in the video above.
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This 360-degree technology and app were created by Xing-Dong Yang at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Surround-See can recognize its peripheral environment, nearby objects, the user's hand, remote gestures and other user activities.
Surround-See technology could be useful in daily life by restricting access to your phone when driving, allowing you to remotely change volume on a set of speakers through air gestures, or detect whether a finger or stylus is interacting with a touchscreen. The device could even know when a user walks away from his or her phone — a useful feature for the forgetful or for those who want to use an air gesture to activate voicemail.
This special lens and app show the potential for what smartphones could do if equipped with these "depth-sensing cameras," New Scientist reported.
Surround-See was demoed on an Android device, but recent reports reveal that Apple might have its own sensing technology in the works. It's still purely speculative right now: But in July, Apple was reportedly in talks to buy PrimeSense — a company responsible for tech in Microsoft's Kinect sensor.
What do you think about this Surround-See technology? Would you like your smart device to become that much smarter? Let us know in the comments.
Image: YouTube, Xing-Dong Yang
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