Abstract:
The camera system disclosed herein provides a seamless method of enabling people who are recording video to share their perspectives using multiple cameras easily and conveniently using a technique called cam flip. One system allows you to start recording video of yourself, and then after recording starts use a simple swipe up gesture to continue to record what you&#39;re looking at. You can swipe down to show your face again, optionally swiping up and down as many times as you want to switch cameras, without pausing the video. The resultant output can be sent to a server or saved to a camera roll or streamed.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
       [0001]    The present application claims benefit of priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/170,830, entitled “Smartphone Camera User Interface” and filed on Jun. 4, 2015, which is specifically incorporated by reference for all that it discloses and teaches. 
     
    
     FIELD 
       [0002]    Implementations disclosed herein relate, in general, to information management technology and specifically to video recording. 
       SUMMARY 
       [0003]    The recording system disclosed herein, referred to as cam flip, provides for a method of enabling someone recording a video to seamlessly switch which camera is recording. 
         [0004]    In one implementation of cam flip, a simple touch gesture of swiping up switches from the front (self) facing camera to the back (away) facing camera and simple touch gesture of swiping down switches from the back (away) facing camera to the front (self) facing camera. If there are more than 2 cameras, this technique can still be used to cycle cameras. Note that while in this implementation an up gesture switches from front to back facing camera and vice versa, in an alternative implementation, an up gesture may switch from back to front and a down gesture may flip the camera from front to back. 
         [0005]    Yet alternatively, the up and down gestures may also be replaced by right and left gesture, thus for example a gesture of a finger, thumb, etc., to right may switch from front facing camera to back facing camera and a gesture to left may switch the camera from back facing to front facing, or vice-versa. The user inputs to cam flip do not even need to be restricted to swipes as we believe it is novel to just switch cameras during a recording session as being directed by user input, of which a simple swipe gesture is our chosen implementation. 
         [0006]    In one implementation of cam flip, the camera can be flipped multiple times to switch perspective from the person recording, to what they&#39;re looking at based on multiple cameras. 
         [0007]    In one implementation of cam flip, these swipes and switches can only occur after recording is started (e.g. 1 second into the recording); in another, only prior to recording, and in another, at either time. If the flipping occurs during recording, flipping does not pause the recording. 
         [0008]    In one implementation of cam flip, recording must begin using a particular camera, such as the front facing camera, such that all recordings start with seeing the person, and then optionally, they can show what they are looking at using other cameras, and optionally cycle them, etc. 
         [0009]    In one implementation of cam flip, the recording is the stitched together output of the cameras that were recording and can be streamed live or saved to a camera roll or uploaded to a server for distribution. 
         [0010]    In another implementation of cam flip, the output of all cameras is sent to the server, along with the information of which was the currently being focused on by the user, so that all the output can be used for optimal later distribution and display. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0011]    A further understanding of the nature and advantages of the present technology may be realized by reference to the figures, which are described in the remaining portion of the specification. In the figures, like reference numerals are used throughout several figures to refer to similar components. In some instances, a reference numeral may have an associated sub-label consisting of a lower-case letter to denote one of multiple similar components. When reference is made to a reference numeral without specification of a sub-label, the reference is intended to refer to all such multiple similar components. 
           [0012]      FIG. 1  illustrates one implementation of cam flip where the camera is recording from the self facing camera and the user indicates a desire to flip the camera by swiping up and observes the display pane rotate to what they are looking at using the other camera. 
           [0013]      FIG. 2  illustrates how a user can cycle between recording cameras with cam flip. 
           [0014]      FIG. 3  is an example flow chart depicting an implementation of cam flip user interface. 
           [0015]      FIG. 4  illustrates an example view of a user using a smartphone with cam flip. 
           [0016]      FIG. 5  illustrates an example view of a user using a smartphone with cam flip gesture. 
           [0017]      FIG. 6  illustrates an example view of a user using a smartphone with cam flip user interface resulting in alternative camera orientation. 
           [0018]      FIG. 7  illustrates another example view of a user using a smartphone with cam flip gesture. 
           [0019]      FIG. 8  illustrates another example view of a user using a smartphone with cam flip resulting in alternative camera orientation. 
           [0020]      FIG. 9  illustrates an example output media generated by a user using a smartphone camera with cam flip user interface. 
           [0021]      FIG. 10  illustrates an example system that may be useful in implementing the described technology. 
           [0022]      FIG. 11  illustrates an example mobile device that may be useful in implementing the described technology. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       [0023]    The recording system disclosed herein, referred to as cam flip, provides for a method of enabling someone recording a video to seamlessly switch which camera is recording. This is especially useful if someone is telling a story and wants to talk to you and also show you what they are looking at. 
         [0024]      FIG. 1  illustrates a plurality of images  100  illustrating one implementation of cam flip user interface on a smartphone where the camera is recording from the self facing camera and the user indicates a desire to flip the camera by swiping up and observes the display pane switch to what they are looking at using the other camera. The first image  100   a  shows the user recording with the self-facing camera  110 . The user&#39;s image  104  is presented on the screen of the device  102 , and the finger or thumb is in a neutral position. The second image  100   b  shows the user placing their finger or thumb  106  on the surface of the device  102 , while still recording with the self-facing camera  110 . Image three  100   c  shows the user beginning the gesture of swiping vertically upward with their finger or thumb  106  on the screen of the device  102 . Image four  100   d  further shows the user swiping upward with their finger or thumb  106  on the screen of the device  102 . In image five  100   e  the display pane switches away from the self-facing camera  110 . In image six  100   f  the device  102  has switched from the self-facing camera  110  to the away facing camera  112 . The image of the object  108  in front of the user is now displayed on the screen of device  102 . 
         [0025]      FIG. 2  illustrates a plurality of images  200  illustrating how a user can cycle between recording cameras. The first image  200   a  shows image capture on device  202  of an object  206  in front of the user, using the away-facing camera  212 . The object  206  in front of the user is recorded by the away-facing camera  212  and displayed  204  on the screen of the device  202 . The first image  200   a  shows the user initializing a downward swipe using a finger or thumb  216 . In the second image  200   b  the user has initialized the downward swipe using a finger or thumb  216 , resulting in cam flip cycling between away-facing  212  and self-facing camera  210  views. In image three  200   c  cam flip is completing the switch from away-facing camera  212  to self-facing camera  210 , displaying the image of the user  214 . In image four  200   d  the user has completed the downward swipe with a finger or thumb  216  and the recording camera has switched from the away-facing camera  212  to the self-facing camera  210 . Note that while the illustrations of  FIG. 2  are still images, in reality, the first to the third images ( 200   a - 200   c ) represents a continuous video where some of the video is captured by a front facing camera and some of the video is captured by the camera facing away from the user. 
         [0026]      FIG. 3  is an example flowchart  300  depicting an implementation of cam flip. Cam flip begins by determining whether the user has entered a recording interface  302 . If a user is not currently using a recording interface, cam flip operations are not available. After a user has entered a recording interface, the smartphone&#39;s swipe detection is enabled  304 . For example, a user may use his finger or thumb to make a vertical swipe up or down on a smartphone touchscreen. If no swipe is detected, cam flip may standby while the user remains in a recording interface and continue monitoring for a user swipe. Upon detection of a vertical swipe, cam flip determines whether the swipe was up  306 . If the user swiped up, cam flip cycles the recording camera to the away-facing camera  308 . For example, once cam flip detects an up swipe, the recording camera will cycle to record the image of the object in front of the user. If the user swiped down, cam flip cycles the recording camera to the self-facing camera  310 . For example, once cam flip detects a down swipe, the recording camera will cycle to record the image of the user. Subsequently, an operation determines if the user is recording the output from the selected camera. If the user is recording, the outputs from both the away-facing and self-facing cameras are recorded to an output media stream.  FIG. 3  depicts a system that detects a vertical swipe up or down. However, it would also be understood from this disclosure that a user may make a horizontal swipe left or right. 
         [0027]      FIG. 4  illustrates an example view  400  of a user using a smartphone with cam flip feature. Specifically, in this view  400 , the user  402  is using a device  404  with dual cameras—a self-facing camera  410  and an away-facing camera  412 , such as a smartphone to record video of an object  406 . While the away-facing camera  412  is active, the user  402  sees an image  420  of the object  406  displayed on the screen of the device  404 . 
         [0028]      FIG. 5  illustrates an example view  500  of a user using a smartphone with a cam flip swipe  502  in an up direction or from the bottom of the device  508  towards the top of the device. In one implementation, if the device was held sideways (with the bottom and top aligned horizontally), a cam flip swipe  502  from either left to right or from right to left may be considered equivalent to a cam flip swipe  502  in the up direction. An implementation of a touch-sensitive touch screen  530  of device  508  allows user  504  to interact with the device  508 . The touch-sensitive touch screen  530  recognizes touch events on the surface of the touch-sensitive touch screen  530  and outputs information about the touch events to the device  508 . In alternative implementations, the device  508  may, for example, correspond to a computer such as a desktop, laptop, handheld, a phablet computer, or a tablet computer. The device  508  interprets the touch events and thereafter performs an action based on the touch events. The touch-sensitive touch screen provides an input interface and an output interface between the device  508  and the user  504 . The touch-sensitive touch screen  530  displays visual output to the user  504  in response to one or more of the touch events. 
         [0029]    The visual output may include graphic, text, icons, video, and any combination thereof. The touch-sensitive touch screen  530  has a touch-sensitive surface, sensor or set of sensors that accepts input from the user  504  based on haptic and/or tactile contact. The touch-sensitive touch screen  530  detects contact on the surface and converts the detected contact into interaction with user-interface objects that are displayed on the touch-sensitive touch screen  530 . The touch-sensitive touch screen  530  may detect contact and any movement using a plurality of touch sensing technologies now known or later developed, including but not limited to capacitive, resistive, infrared, and surface acoustic wave technologies, as well as other proximity sensor array or other elements for determining interaction with the touch-sensitive touch screen  530  surface. User  504  uses a finger or thumb  522  to interact with the touch-sensitive touch screen  530  surface of the device  508 . When the touch-sensitive touch screen  530  of device  508  senses an upward vertical swipe  502  of finger or thumb  522 , cam flip cycles the the recording camera from an away-facing camera  512  to a self-facing camera  510 . The result of the upward vertical swipe  502  is illustrated in  FIG. 6 . 
         [0030]    Specifically,  FIG. 6  illustrates an example view  600  of the user  608  using a smartphone with cam flip user interface resulting in alternative camera orientation. Specifically, while the image  500  illustrates the camera facing an object, the image  600  illustrates the camera capturing the user&#39;s image  602 . The user&#39;s image  602  is captured by the self-facing camera  610 . 
         [0031]      FIG. 7  illustrates another example view  700  of a user using a smartphone with cam flip swipe  702  in a down direction. User  704  uses a finger or thumb  722  to interact with the touch-sensitive touch screen  730  of the device  708 . When the touch-sensitive touch screen  730  of device  708  senses a downward vertical swipe  702  of finger or thumb  722 , cam flip cycles the recording camera from the self-facing camera  710  to the away-facing camera  712 . The result of the downward vertical swipe  702  is illustrated in  FIG. 8 . 
         [0032]    Specifically,  FIG. 8  illustrates another example view  800  of a user  808  using a smartphone with cam flip resulting in alternative camera orientation. Specifically, while the image  700  illustrates the camera facing the user, the image  800  illustrates the camera capturing an image  802  of an object  806  facing the camera on the other side of the user  804 . The object&#39;s image is captured by the away-facing camera  812 . 
         [0033]      FIG. 9  illustrates an example output media  900  generated by a user using a smartphone camera with cam flip user interface. As illustrated by the output media  900 , the user may have started recording the media (in this case a movie) when the camera is recording an object in front of the user, as captured at  902 . When the user flips the camera using the camera flip gesture by swiping a finger, etc., on the screen of the smartphone, the camera facing the user starts recording the user, resulting in the camera capturing the user as captured at  904 . Furthermore, the user may keep using the cam flip gesture again and again to continue alternatively recording an object in front of her and her own image  906 . 
         [0034]      FIG. 10  illustrates an example system  1000  that may be useful in implementing the described technology for providing offline maps. The example hardware and operating environment of  FIG. 10  for implementing the described technology includes a computing device, such as a general purpose computing device in the form of a computer  20 , a mobile telephone, a personal data assistant (PDA), a tablet, smart watch, gaming remote, or other type of computing device. In the implementation of  FIG. 10 , for example, the computer  20  includes a processing unit  21 , a system memory  22 , and a system bus  23  that operatively couples various system components including the system memory to the processing unit  21 . There may be only one or there may be more than one processing unit  21 , such that the processor of computer  20  comprises a single central-processing unit (CPU), or a plurality of processing units, commonly referred to as a parallel processing environment. The computer  20  may be a conventional computer, a distributed computer, or any other type of computer; the implementations are not so limited. 
         [0035]    The system bus  23  may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, a switched fabric, point-to-point connections, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. The system memory may also be referred to as simply the memory, and includes read only memory (ROM)  24  and random access memory (RAM)  25 . A basic input/output system (BIOS)  26 , containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within the computer  20 , such as during start-up, is stored in ROM  24 . The computer  20  further includes a hard disk drive  27  for reading from and writing to a hard disk, not shown, a magnetic disk drive  28  for reading from or writing to a removable magnetic disk  29 , and an optical disk drive  30  for reading from or writing to a removable optical disk  31  such as a CD ROM, DVD, or other optical media. 
         [0036]    The hard disk drive  27 , magnetic disk drive  28 , and optical disk drive  30  are connected to the system bus  23  by a hard disk drive interface  32 , a magnetic disk drive interface  33 , and an optical disk drive interface  34 , respectively. The drives and their associated tangible computer-readable media provide non-volatile storage of computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for the computer  20 . It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that any type of tangible computer-readable media may be used in the example cam flip technology. 
         [0037]    A number of program modules may be stored on the hard disk drive  27 , magnetic disk  29 , optical disk  31 , ROM  24 , or RAM  25 , including an operating system  35 , one or more application programs  36 , other program modules  37 , and program data  38 . A user may generate reminders on the personal computer  20  through input devices such as a keyboard  40  and pointing device  42 . Other input devices (not shown) may include a microphone (e.g., for voice input), a camera (e.g., for a natural user interface (NUI)), a joystick, a game pad, a satellite dish, a scanner, or the like. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit  21  through a serial port interface  46  that is coupled to the system bus, but may be connected by other interfaces, such as a parallel port, game port, or a universal serial bus (USB). A monitor  47  or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus  23  via an interface, such as a video adapter  48 . In addition to the monitor, computers typically include other peripheral output devices (not shown), such as speakers and printers. 
         [0038]    The computer  20  may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as remote computer  49 . These logical connections are achieved by a communication device coupled to or a part of the computer  20 ; the implementations are not limited to a particular type of communications device. The remote computer  49  may be another computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a client, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to the computer  20 . The logical connections depicted in  FIG. 10  include a local-area network (LAN)  51  and a wide-area network (WAN)  52 . Such networking environments are commonplace in office networks, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet, which are all types of networks. 
         [0039]    When used in a LAN-networking environment, the computer  20  is connected to the local network  51  through a network interface or adapter  53 , which is one type of communications device. When used in a WAN-networking environment, the computer  20  typically includes a modem  54 , a network adapter, a type of communications device, or any other type of communications device for establishing communications over the wide area network  52 . The modem  54 , which may be internal or external, is connected to the system bus  23  via the serial port interface  46 . In a networked environment, program engines depicted relative to the personal computer  20 , or portions thereof, may be stored in the remote memory storage device. It is appreciated that the network connections shown are examples and other means of communications devices for establishing a communications link between the computers may be used. 
         [0040]    In an example implementation, software or firmware instructions for providing offline maps may be stored in memory  22  and/or storage devices  29  or  31  and processed by the processing unit  21 . Rules for providing offline maps may be stored in memory  22  and/or storage devices  29  or  31  as persistent datastores. For example, an offline map download module may be implemented with instructions stored in the memory  22  and/or storage devices  29  or  31  and processed by the processing unit  21 . Similarly, a GPS parameter processing module may also be implemented with instructions stored in the memory  22  and/or storage devices  29  or  31  and processed by the processing unit  21 . The memory  22  may be used to store one or more offline maps. In one implementation, the memory  22  may store a camera cycling module executable by the one or more processor units, the camera cycling module configured to detect a direction of a swipe on a user interface surface and in response to the detection, cycle between a self facing camera and an away facing camera based on the direction of the swipe gesture. 
         [0041]      FIG. 11  illustrates another example system (labeled as a mobile device  1100 ) that may be useful in implementing the described cam flip technology. The mobile device  1100  includes a processor  1102 , a memory  1104 , a display  1106  (e.g., a touchscreen display), and other interfaces  1108  (e.g., a keyboard). The memory  1104  generally includes both volatile memory (e.g., RAM) and non-volatile memory (e.g., flash memory). An operating system  1110  resides in the memory  1104  and is executed by the processor  1102 , although it should be understood that other operating systems may be employed. 
         [0042]    One or more application programs  1112  are loaded in the memory  1104  and executed on the operating system  1110  by the processor  1102 . Examples of application programs  1112  include without limitation email programs, scheduling programs, personal information managers, Internet browsing programs, multimedia player applications, etc. An implementation of the mobile device  1100  may include application programs  1112  used for providing the cam flip capabilities to the mobile device  1100 . A notification manager  1114  is also loaded in the memory  1104  and is executed by the processor  1102  to present notifications to the user. For example, when a promotion is triggered and presented to the shopper, the notification manager  1114  can cause the mobile device  1100  to beep or vibrate (via the vibration device  1118 ) and display the promotion on the display  1106 . 
         [0043]    The mobile device  1100  includes a power supply  1116 , which is powered by one or more batteries or other power sources and which provides power to other components of the mobile device  1100 . The power supply  1116  may also be connected to an external power source that overrides or recharges the built-in batteries or other power sources. 
         [0044]    The mobile device  1100  includes one or more communication transceivers  1130  to provide network connectivity (e.g., mobile phone network, Wi-Fi®, Bluetooth®, etc.). The mobile device  1100  also includes various other components, such as a positioning system  1120  (e.g., a global positioning satellite transceiver), one or more accelerometers  1122 , one or more cameras  1124 , an audio interface  1126  (e.g., a microphone, an audio amplifier and speaker and/or audio jack), and additional storage  1128 . Other configurations may also be employed.