Friday, May 30, 2008 -- 10:56 a.m. -- on my couch

**UPDATE 05.30.08 12:54 p.m.: Caller Gravlock kindly let me know that the optical sensor is always there and that it's actually the thing that senses when you put it up to your face, to turn off the touch screen controls. I knew about that, but I didn't know it was called the optical sensor. So thanks much, Gravlock.**

If we didn't get confirmation of a video camera embedded into the front of the next iPhone in what I'm about to show you, we may have for the one after this.

Website cellpassion.mobi has just enough information from the U.S. patent office that shows a diagram of an iPhone with something on the front called "OPTICAL SENSOR."

Currently, the only optical sensor that I am aware of is the one on the back.

Just because it's in a patent -- which is dated May 29, 2008 -- doesn't mean it's ready for primetime now. And it doesn't mean it will ever see the light of day, but the rumors that have been consistent up until now include an iPhone with a forward facing camera.

And this is a good time to mention that before those sites and before Kevin Rose on Digg, I said that the iPhone would have a forward-facing camera to make it the most unique and amazing video conferencing device on the planet. I predicted that for version 1, so I'm off on my dates, but I believe that we're going to get a video-capable iPhone very, very soon.

Specifically, this patent also talks about iPhone applications and one of those apps mentioned is for video conferencing. So no matter whether it's a sensor or words or whatever, a second camera -- or at least a new camera on the front that's for still images and video -- seems very likely.

And if I get more information on anything else in this patent that's of interest, I will let you know.

Feel free to discuss in the comments ... how would video-conferencing on the iPhone be of use to you?

Thanks for calling.

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There are at least two video capture apps for the iPhone.. ShowTime (6 fps no audio) by PolarBearLabs and VideoRecorder by DreamCatcher (15 fps and audio).. granted it would be difficult at best to use the current iPhone as a video conferencing tool, it might be useful.

SCOTT'S REPLY: Definitely, but if we get the new camera on the new iPhone, it's about to get much, much easier.

There is an "OPTICAL SENSOR" on the front of the iphone 1.0. It senses when you put it up to your face, to turn off the touch screen controls so you don't accidently hang up ect...

SCOTT'S REPLY: Indeed there is. I wasn't aware it was called an optical sensor.

It turns down the brightness of the screen.

SCOTT'S REPLY: Yep. I stand corrected. And I updated the post to give you props for alerting me.

Video conferencing while walking would be every bit as bad as texting while walking. Imagine crossing a street, looking at your iPhone instead of that oncoming taxi ... your iPhone might get hurt.

Video conferencing on the iPhone is only of minor interest for me. The real benefit to video conferencing is when you can use a shared whiteboard, for discussing documents, photos, video, etc ... not for looking at who is talking.

SCOTT'S REPLY: And, Tim, with the features now available in the desktop versions of .mac and iChat, I think what you are talking about it a very real and distinct possibility, if not now, then in the future for sure.

And like everything else, people just have to be careful. I do hope we don't have people blindly videoconferencing while walking across the street, or, while driving.

I'm not to sure gravlock has it right. Jobs explained how the proximity sensor works in his iPhone intro keynote but there is no optical sensor on my iPhone that I can tell and that anything points out. An optical sensor deals with infrared etc. So, looks like we're going to have some control of our televisions with the new iPhone 3G finally!

SCOTT'S REPLY: I did not know there was anything optical in terms of sensors on the iPhone for remote control functionality. I'd need to look into that.

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