A little while ago we revealed that simple “eye gestures” had been mentioned in the Google Glass code. Well it turns out Developer Mike DiGiovanni has already developed an app called “Winky” that uses the gesture support to snap photos with Glass. If you recognize that name, it’s because he’s the same developer responsible for the recent “Bulletproof” lock-screen app, with added some simple security measures to the Glass platform.
When Winky is active, a simple wink of the eye will allow you to capture a photo of whatever you’re looking at- provided you’re wearing the device, of course. Winky has to be calibrated first, but the process is not difficult.
DiGiovanni says Winky adds a much better way to snap photos, because the standard method which requires voice commands or tapping on the side of the glasses “takes you out of the moment.”
The app has been released as a source code package, so if you want to install it on your Glass you’ll have to compile the package as an APK first. The rest of us normal folk will just pretend to do something with our invisible units.
It’s definitely exciting to see progress like this being made on such a relatively young device. After all, the Google Glass Explorer Edition has only been available for a couple weeks, at most. We already have news of developers doing some pretty innovative things with the platform. Imagine what will be around by the time the device is finally available for consumers.
Although, hopefully that price tag will come down quite a bit before that happens. I don’t think many people are comfortable paying in excess of $1500 for a device that’s no more than just an expensive toy at the moment.
Still, I have no doubt that over time we’ll see functionality expanded and Google Glass will become an incredibly useful tool in our everyday lives. I for one, look forward to the day where I don’t even have to pull out my smartphone to snap a photo- especially at concerts and events where you could be watching things happen instead.