Google Gesture Patent Could Mean Glass Wearers Will 'Heart' Things IRL

Get your best heart hand gesture ready because it may soon come in handy for sharing photos.

The Independent reports that a patent filed by Google hints at a new Glass feature that would allow users to "like" and share photos by making a heart shape with their hands.

According to the filing, Google wants to patent the heart hand gesture so that a "wearable computing device, which could include a head-mounted display (HMD) and a video camera, may recognize known hand gestures and carry out particular actions in response." As The Independent states, that HMD probably refers to Google Glass.

See also: Google Glass May Soon Call You a Car, Tune Your Instrument

Engadget originally published the full patent, which goes on to explain how the device would "transmit the generated images to one or more applications in a network server communicatively connected with the HMD."

The accompanying illustrations show a pair of hands forming a heart over the image of a man. Arrows point to a cropped section that becomes the image users can then share. Anything you love in real life you can "like" through the hand gesture and share with all your friends online.

Google Glass might also feature the same technology for the hand gestures you make when mimicking a film director. Placing a right-side-up and upside-down L on either side of an object in your sight creates another image you can share.

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Image: Flickr, Gabriela Pinto

1. 

   Glass To Facebook

   Google Glass may not have full Facebook functionality yet, but it does have a way to share photos to Facebook. A third-party app appropriately named "Glass to Facebook" makes your Facebook account a contact within Glass, and allows you to share photos you take to your Facebook wall.

2. 

   Glass Tweet

   Glass Tweet is a bare bones third-party Twitter client for Glass that makes users twitter accounts a contact within Glass, allowing them to share tweets to their Twitter timeline much like they might send a photo to a friend.

3. 

4. 

   MedRef For Glass

   Created at a medical hackathon, MedRef brings facial recognition to Google Glass. Designed for hospital employees, the app can bring up information such as a patient's folder, along with notes about that particular person—just by looking at them.

5. 

   Winky

   Created by Mike DiGiovanni, Winky is a Google Glass app that lets you take photos with Glass by winking rather than saying "Glass take a photo" or using the shutter button on the device. The app was released as pure Android source code, and has to be complied and run as an APK on Glass in order to work --- so it's not for amateurs.

6. 

   Glassagram

   Glassagram is Instagram of sorts for Glass. To use the app, you simply share a photo you've taken with Glass with the app, much like you might share an image with a contact. Glassagram applies all the filters you've selected with it to that picture and sends a bundle of filtered images back to you that can then be shared with friends.

7. 

   Fullscreen BEAM

   Fullscreen BEAM is the first YouTube app for Google Glass. The app creates a contact for your YouTube account, and lets you share videos you record using Glass to that contact, which in turn posts that video to your YouTube page where you can share it with others.