With the rise of mobile devices, cameras have become very popular and are essentially available to every other person. However, this has raised the critical question of individual privacy at public places. Interestingly, Apple has now filed a patent which speaks about a camera with built-in privacy filter.
In the past, other vendors have proposed different solutions which let the users tweak the privacy settings of photos or videos taken by a given camera. However, what Apple has envisioned is quite different. In the patent application, Apple essentially expounds on the idea of developing a camera so that the camera module itself includes different privacy filters.
It is unclear from the application as to how will the user be able to control the privacy controls of the camera. Apparently, by tweaking these controls, a user can turn the output images of a camera from opaque to transparent, depending on the privacy-sensitivity of that image.
The images in the filing hint that Apple may have plans of including such a camera in the upcoming iMac and MacBook machines. However, the patent application also talks about including the novel camera in products such as television, which may mean that Apple TV also stands a chance on this one.
Naturally, the fact that Apple has only filed this patent means that it would be a long while before we actually get to see such a camera in any of Apple products.
Source: USPTO
Courtesy: Engadget
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