When Google Glass started shipping out to early testers, privacy advocates were worried about the gadget’s face camera. Google Glass, they warned, represented a disconcerting new way for wearers to snap secret photos of anyone they were looking at.
Recently, however, two fully funded crowdsourced projects have proved that the humble iPhone can be just as secretive for sneaky snaps. The gadgets, called COVR Photo and the Peek-I, are both shipping soon, and both make taking a photo on your iPhone without your subject noticing a breeze.
All right. So maybe just wanting to sneak pictures of the cute guy sitting across the coffee shop from you isn’t quite an NSA-level invasion. And, truth be told, both of these so-called “spy cams” are pretty nifty extensions of the iPhone’s camera.
COVR Photo is an iPhone camera case developed in part by award-winning photojournalist Thomas Hurst. The case, made for the iPhone 5 and 5s, features a “periscoping lens.” That means you can position the phone flat in your hand to candidly snap pictures without interrupting “the uniqueness of what is unfolding before you,” as Hurst explains on the device’s Kickstarter page.