A tiny company called Looxcie (look-see, get it?) has just launched a really interesting Bluetooth accessory that lets you record and share video right from the side of your head. You can record for up to 4 hours of 15 frames per second, 480 x 320 video footage, and store around 5 hours of video on the 4 GB local memory. Of course, it acts as a standard Bluetooth headset as well, letting you take calls like normal, even if you’re in the middle of recording. By pairing up with a dedicated Android app, you can upload short 30 second clips to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or via e-mail with one touch. The app also includes some limited video cropping, and should be supporting other platforms (like BlackBerry, iPhone, and Windows Phone) starting this fall, with everything covered by the end of the year.
Sure, just about every phone already has a camera built into it, and there’s a flurry of smartphone software that lets you do cool stuff with sharing video, but Looxcie’s form factor enables some interesting always-on scenarios. Wouldn’t it be cool if, let’s say, Google Goggles was always quietly watching everything you look at? Maybe a bit creepy, considering how much advertising information Google would be able to farm from each object scanned, but also handy if your pocket buzzed if the app had some relevant information to share. Of course, there’s live-streaming, too. Though Looxcie doesn’t support it yet, support for streaming video could be the end of the dorks I have seen at trade shows strapping phones to their hats to share the experience with their loyal blog-readers. The added mobility of having your hands free could also enable some pretty awesome sports video, so long as the frame rate could get bumped up to capture especially speedy moments, and the accessory itself was ruggedized enough to handle a bit of punishment.
In the long run, I would really like to see the Looxcie cross with something like the upcoming Vuzix Wrap 920AR to combine hands-free video sharing with eye-level augmented reality without looking like a total douche. Maybe that’s asking for too much.
Head over to Amazon to nab the Looxcie headset for $199. Here’s a sample of the video quality you can expect… Not bad, eh?
[via TechCrunch]