Ubi-Camera Let’s You Take Photos With Your Hands

Researchers at the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences are working on a device that allows you to take pictures using your hands. The small camera is attached to your thumb and let’s you frame shots using your fingers in the shape of a rectangle.

“When you draw a picture or take a photo, you sometimes form a rectangle with your hands to decide the composition. With this camera, you can take a photo using the exact same motion. You attach this device to your index finger, and form a rectangle with your finger like this. You take the photo by using the rectangle as the viewfinder, like this. When you push hard with your thumb, the shutter is pressed.”

Camera users fit the tiny square camera unit over a finger, then ‘frame’ shots using their fingers.

The ‘square’ of fingers work as a viewfinder for the prototype, which was demonstrated at a Japanese technology institute.

If the camera is to become a commercial reality, the team will have to move the image-processing into the unit itself – which could mean a finger-twisting effort to hold a camera while making a ‘frame’ with fingers at the same time.

In the demonstration, users could also see their ‘viewfinder’ mirrored on a nearby computer screen.