Have you ever had a few friends over and taken a few photographs to find later you aren’t even in any of them. Maybe you forgot to pass your phone around or maybe you were too in the moment to remember to capture it.
This new piece of technology is all about capturing moments without you having to take the picture.
Sounds impossible but with facial recognition technology you can train your camera to do just that. The camera gets to know who your friends and family are and to then capture moments when your face is interested, happy or excited. These could be your special moments the ones you want to remember. When the google clips camera sees your eyes widen and the group smiling it takes a picture.
Are you sceptical?
Placing a camera in the room and letting it photograph you at random seems strange. Google says the pictures are only stored on your phone and are not connected online.
The camera is designed to look like a camera and is in no way designed to be undetectable. It is not meant to be a spy camera. The obvious black lens sits in a small versatile square box. On the back there is a clip to connect it to the side of furniture or anything that provides a good view of your room. There is a button on the front for any moments you want to capture yourself by taking a picture the traditional way.
The camera can take either a single frame still photograph or a short film. These are sent to your smart phone via an app where you can edit and delete all your candid surprise shots. This has the possibility of creating a fun after the event experience or maybe it’s just a mess of badly timed snaps you will just delete. There isn’t really a way to know whether you will personally like the shots or not. Relying on the technology may be innovative and extraordinary or you may just feel like you’re being watched.
Cool or creepy you be the judge.
At $239.99 you can decide if it’s worth investing in this subjective piece of new technology.
This product will be available for Australians to purchase from the US until 1st July.
To find out more go to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Clips
By Abigail Nash
Abigail Nash is an editor for W’sup and has worked on the web site since 2017 and the print edition for 2018 and 2019. As a postgraduate student and mother of four she enjoys writing and research particularly in the area of Science education.
