Sony Ericsson patent application hints at automatic zooming camera

The struggling Japanese-Swedish mobile phone venture, Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE), isn’t exactly seeing their mobile phones flying off the proverbial shelf. With the company announcing employee layoffs and a retail store shutdown, Sony Ericsson had better inject some serious “cool” into their handset portfolio if they want to remain a viable mobile phone manufacturer. This latest patent application could help Sony Ericsson do just that.

While this patent doesn’t scream innovation, it sure is cool. According to the patent application, Sony Ericsson envisions future cameraphones (with a 12 megapixel monster possibly coming in 2009) using accelerometers and proximity sensors to detect motion and body proximity -  subsequently translating that movement into camera zooming commands. So, when you move a future Sony Ericsson cameraphone away from your body, the camera might just zoom in. Moving the cameraphone towards your body might just have that camera zooming out.

[Via: UnwiredView]