A Google Glass developer has created an app that allows you to take a photo using just your eye. The Winky app, currently available for compiling through GitHub,lets you power up Glass from standby mode and snap a quick photo. Mike DiGiovanni, who developed the app alone, says having voiceless control over Glass “really changes things.” Although it doesn’t take a huge amount of effort to ask Glass to take a photo (or to press the side-mounted button), DiGiovanni notes that doing so is “a context switch that takes you out of the moment.”
DiGiovanni also released a brief video showing the gesture. It appears that a slow, deliberate wink is required to activate Glass, presumably to avoid accidentally triggering a photo when blinking. The news that Glass users will be able to snap a photo without talking or pushing a button will do little to abate concerns that Glass could be used to invade people’s privacy by secretly recording them or taking photos.
Tech evangelist Robert Scoble, who has a developer edition of Glass, told us that the privacy concerns were unfounded, as users have no choice but to indicate that they’re taking a photo or video. Although this app goes a way towards invalidating that argument, a column of light appearing in front of a Glass wearer’s eye would still be a pretty big giveaway. It’s obviously
early days in the development of any Glass app, but we’re intrigued to see what the developer, and others, do with the concept of wink gestures.
