Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is developing a new technology for the iPhone known as the Automatic Video Stream Selection based on its latest patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today.
The tech giant’s patent application described a video capture and teleconferencing technology where the front and rear cameras of a hand held device such as the iPhone will be capable of processing videos simultaneously. The technology has the ability to identify whether to stream the video feed from the rear or front camera based on detected voice or visual feeds.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) noted in its patent application that the majority of hand held devices are integrated with front and rear cameras to take photographs and videos, and in most users are generally facing opposite directions. The front camera is used for video calls while the rear camera is for taking pictures. Currently, the iPhone users can only use the front or rear camera separately to perform one task at any given time. The two cameras of some smartphones have the ability to capture videos simultaneously, but the feature is limited.
According to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), it is difficult to stream video feeds simultaneously from both the front and rear camera because of the current restriction in bandwidth. The tech giant emphasized that the new technology is required to select video feeds intelligently while synchronizing the speech activity or audio.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) described the method wherein the first camera receives video stream from one direction and another video stream from the second camera in a different direction. The device also receives audio signal and speech activity from its microphones in both the first and second directions.
The tech giant said its technology generates “multiplexed video stream including portions of the first video stream and portions of the second video stream by automatically switching from the second video stream to the first video stream based at least in part on the detection of the speech activity from the first direction.”
The Automatic Video Stream Selection technology detects the speech activity of users by using the data detected by the microphones of the cameras in the hand held device from both directions.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) said the technology is composed of a motion analyzer to detect lip movement from the image of the user’s face in the first video stream, as well as an audio analyzer for both microphones to detect audio signals received by the hand held device in the first direction. The audio analyzer also provides instruction to the video processing module to select video frames automatically. The video processing module is integrated with a controller to perform its task. The machine-readable storage medium in the hand held device contains all instructions necessary to execute tasks, such as audio and image analysis.
Jae Han Lee and E-Cheng Chang are the inventors of the Automatic Video Stream Selection technology.
