Galileo, a new high-tech device, is about to make iPhone FaceTime feel a lot more like in-person face time. (h/t Co. Design)
The Galileo is a 360-degree rotating tripod that attaches to iPhones. It allows recipients of FaceTime video chats to rotate the callers' device. Just swipe your finger on your screen and Galileo reacts, orienting your callers' device accordingly. That means no more losing track of your toddler when he or she scampers off the screen and no more asking that the phone be adjusted in the middle of a Teleconference call. (See the video demo above.)
The folks at Apple should be asking themselves, "Why didn't we think of that?"
Thankfully, there are inventors out there that move faster than the electronics giant, and now, those inventors have Kickstarter to turn to for funds when the light-bulb goes off. On Kickstarter, Galileo's creators overshot their original $100,000 fundraising goal, netting $338,410 thus far to bring their device to shelves.
The idea came to Josh Guyot during video chats with his two and a half year-old son, he told Fast Company's Co.Design blog. "He will get distracted by something and put the iPhone down," he said. "Then there I am, sometimes thousands of miles away on a trip lasting several weeks, missing my family, and looking at a video of the ceiling."
Notably, Guyot and his partner JoeBen Bevirt, are not only using Kickstarter to get seed funding, they're also using it to find developers who can build apps for the device, the pair told Co.Design.