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New Google Glass patent shows Google toying with hand-gestures to like, crop, and share

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Google-Glass-Vogue-002

We saw Google’s wild and wacky plans for Google Glass back when a patent filing was uncovered a few weeks ago showing us a plethora of wearable Glass prototypes. Where patent filings don’t always lead to a final product, sometimes it’s just fun to take a peek inside the mad minds of the geniuses over at Google.

Google Glass patent gestures Fig 5

While functional in its current state, the vision or scope of what Glass could offer in the future is much more exciting. When talking candidly about Glass, I’ve often told friends that one day Glass would likely incorporate gestures for interacting with the OS. When opening a web page, how cool would it be to reach out your hand and simply pinch-to-zoom in thin air, instead of using the clunky Glass touchpad? If this newly discovered patent filing from Google takes off, looks like I could have been right on the money.

Google Glass patent cropping Fig 10b

The filing shows us future versions of Glass (or possibly even current with a software update) that would be able to detect a user’s hand gestures. For instance, creating an “L” shape with the hand, a user could crop an image inside Glass. Another use case scenario is a heart shape gesture that could “like”, save, or share anything from the real world. Glass could even recognize an item, pulling up extra info, ratings, etc..

Google Glass patent gestures Fig 6c

We can’t help but think all of this sounds a lot like a super charged Google Goggles — a feature/app many thought would debut with Glass, but apparently the tech just wasn’t there yet. Again, there’s no indication that functionality like gestures will ever make its way into Glass, but it’s clear over at Google, they’re certainly thinking about it.

[USPTO via Engadget]

Chris Chavez
I've been obsessed with consumer technology for about as long as I can remember, be it video games, photography, or mobile devices. If you can plug it in, I have to own it. Preparing for the day when Android finally becomes self-aware and I get to welcome our new robot overlords.

Phandroid readers make their cases for seeing Android 4.4 KitKat on October 28th [TEASES]

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9 Comments

  1. I wonder what gesture we have to make to dislike something? :P

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  2. Number 3 looks painful.

    1. Hurry before Apple tries to patent…

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK2DVfExS-I

  3. lol thats what I imagine Chris does with his Google glasses. he just goes around stepping over dead bodies

  4. tinyurl.com/l3cselt

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