Accelerometers have been inside cameras for a long time now. They’re the little gizmos that tell the camera which way up it was when you took a shot and allow auto-rotation of images. They also help keep the images stabilized, and in some cases they even help with exposure, so that the camera knows which way is up and can guess that the big blue strip at the top is probably the sky.
Casio is squeezing a little more from the accelerometer a new prototype, a modified Exilim EX-H10, with something called “hybrid GPS”. The camera has a GPS unit inside, which will geo-tag your images as you shoot. The clever twist is that when the camera can’t see the GPS satellites (ie. nearly always), the camera actually uses the accelerometers to track your movements in space and location-stamp the images based on this guesstimate.
It also appears that you might even navigate with the camera, as it has built-in maps that can be displayed on screen. These can show you where you are, and also plot “push-pins” to mark where your photos have been taken.
GPS is still quite rare in cameras, and the problem of indoor tracking is likely to be a big reason for this. The other problem has been battery drain, and Casio’s system could, theoretically, fix this too by only firing up the GPS radio to check its calculations from time to time.
Like we said, this is a prototype, but Casio has a habit of quickly bringing its innovations to market. I’m looking forward to the next logical step: Just throw in an electronic compass like you get in modern smart-phones and the camera will know which way it is pointing, too. That should let it make automatic panoramas and fly-through virtual reconstructions of your vacation, similar to Microsoft’s wonderful Photosynth.
Casio, but can be used indoor GPS built-in digital camera prototype [Impress via DPReview]
Photos: Impress
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