US 9,313,399 B2 · System and method for identifying people in an image

Abstract

Described herein are methods and devices employing low power wireless features to identify persons in a captured image using signals emitted from such persons' personal computing devices. As described, signals emitted from personal computing devices commonly carried on a person, such as cell phones, enable an image capture device to wirelessly connect to the personal computing devices, both directly and through a mesh network, and to obtain information about the person carrying the device. Further, the image capture device may determine the location of the personal computing devices to tag locations of persons in a captured image. Some embodiments may allow the image capture device to automatically share the captured image, such as by email, text, or social networking websites and applications. It is also possible to create a local group of users who will be identified by the image capture device, or to operate in a publicly detectable mode.

Claims32

Dependent claims

An imaging system comprising:

an image capture device comprising:
a communication module having a wireless communication range, the communication module configured to communicate with a plurality of personal computing devices;
a location triangulation module configured to determine a location of each of the plurality of personal computing devices using the communication module;
an image capture module configured to capture a target image of a scene, and
a tagging module configured to identify a subset of the plurality of personal computing devices that are located within a range of the scene;
wherein the communication module is further configured to:
receive contact information of users associated with at least some of the subset of the plurality of personal computing devices, and
automatically share the target image with the users using the contact information;
and
wherein at least one of the plurality of personal computing devices is located outside of the wireless communication range of the image capture device, and wherein the at least one of the plurality of personal computing devices located outside of the wireless communication range is configured to form an ad-hoc network with the image capture device.

7 more elements

A method of capturing a target image using an image capture device, comprising:

connecting, via the image capture device, to a plurality of personal computing devices, each of the plurality of personal computing devices associated with one of a plurality of users, wherein the connecting comprises:
connecting to a first personal computing device located within a wireless communication range of the image capture device;
connecting to a second personal computing device located outside of the wireless communication range of the image capture device, wherein the second personal computing device is configured to form an ad-hoc network with the image capture device;
receiving contact information from at least some of the plurality of personal computing devices regarding the associated one of the plurality of user;
capturing the target image;
and
for each device of the plurality of personal computing devices:
determining a location of the device;
identifying, based at least partly on the location, whether the device is located within a range of the target image;
and
in response to identifying that the device is located within the range:
associating the location and the contact information with the target image;
and
automatically sharing the target image with the associated one of the plurality of users using the contact information.

11 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

System and method for identifying people in an image

Life of this patent

System and method for identifying people in an image

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims32