Sony has just filed a brand new and somewhat bizarre patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Under the new patent, camera sensors on a given device would be able to tag movies and photographs with your vital signs. Think how current photos from smartphones and GPS enabled cameras place a meta data with the photos location. Now replace or add to that GPS coordinates your vital signs. This means that in edition to GPS coordinates, your photos can contain data like body temperature, pulse rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, blood oxygen level, and skin conductance.

While right off the bat, the inclusion of such information may seem trivial at best, the idea itself can be ground breaking for the medical field. It’s especially true for those looking to monitor their vital stats and see the data afterwards in different circumstances and a photo can help bring much needed context. Of course, just because Sony or any given company files for a patent does not mean that the patent in question will ever find its way to a product. And when/if they do, its use might be entirely different.

Discuss:

Do you think such data can be useful?

[Via USPTO]