Future Apple Watches may support FaceTime calls

Want to make FaceTimes calls on your Apple Watch? It may happen. Apple has been granted a patent (number 10,129,503) for an “image-capturing watch.” 

In the patent filing, the tech giant notes that folks use electronic devices to record video, which may be of themselves. For example, a person may record their face while talking, and may do so as part of a video conference in which the person’s image is transmitted to another participant in the conference to be displayed on a device of the other participant during the video conference. 

You can, of course, do that with FaceTime on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Apple thinks you’d also like to do it on your Apple Watch.

Here’s the summary of the invention: “The image-capturing device may include two cameras, a watch body, and a watch band coupled to the watch body. The two cameras may simultaneously capture images. A processor of the image-capturing device may combine image data of the simultaneously-captured images from the two cameras into resultant image data representing a single continuous image. The images captured by the cameras may be moving images (i.e., video).

“The processor may identify a tracking target within the captured images and may continuously output target image data representing a target area of the image including the tracking target. Where the tracking target is a face captured from a low angle, the processor may angle-adjust the image so that the output target image data represents the face from a different angle (e.g., a front angle).”

Of course, Apple files for — and is granted — lots of patents by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Many are for inventions that never see the light of day. However, you never can tell which ones will materialize in a real product.