The Ubi-Camera is new, but it seems familiar the moment you see it. The ad hoc viewfinder is a throwback to the classic pose you’ve seen film directors strike to frame shots and it also bears semblance to the work done by Pranav Mistry on the Sixth Sense project.
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The prototype device by researchers at Japan’s Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences is an experiment in designing a miniature camera without skimping on the viewfinder. There’s no LCD, instead, you slip the tiny camera onto your index finger, frame a shot with your L-framed hands and adjust the focus with the help of an infrared sensor: move your hands closer to your face for wide-angle shots or further away for close-ups. You snap a picture by pressing the side-mounted shutter button with your thumb.
In its prototype stage the Ubi-Camera has to be tethered to a PC to figure out the zoom and the infrared sensor can be thrown off by lighting conditions, but a mobile unit is in the works and the researchers hope to build in face detection to make measuring distance more precise.
We here at Gearburn have a suggestion for a front-facing camera gesture, vogue.
