Look ma, no hands: Swedish startup's GoCam app allows touchless selfies

There are loads of apps for selfie fans to choose from and that has resulted in a niche app market catering just for that type of photography. But GoCam might just be the most easy way to take a selfie.

Swedish tech startup Crunchfish has launched an app for Apple’s iOS devices that lets people take photos of themselves without having to touch their screens. Using touchless technology which it says is ideal for taking “selfies” or “groupies”, Crunchfish’s GoCam lets users trigger photos or videos from a distance with just hand gestures. Even though the app is iOS only at the moment, the video does show it working on a Sony Android phone.

Photos can be triggered from a distance of up to 3 m (yards), it says. Of course, this is nothing new as LG’s G3 phone takes selfies using gestures too, but the app is the first of its kind on iOS.

The company, based in the southern Swedish city of Malmo, says the free GoCam app will be initially available in Sweden and Australia, and could be available for other regions soon, depending on adoption.

While gesture recognition has become more popular thanks to products such as Microsoft’s Kinect for video games, the power-hungry technology has yet to become mainstream in computers or mobile devices.

Smartphones these days uses off-screen gestures for various purposes, including navigation, opening apps and recognising gestures within games etc.

With input from Reuters