Nokia Patents Digital Equivalent of Scribbling Words on Polaroid Pics

Nokia filed a new patent last week trying to solve one of the problems of our digital lives: identifying what and who is in our digital photos. It’s the digital equivalent of scribbling on the white bit at the bottom of a Polaroid pic (you know the kind of text: “Steve looking silly in Hawaii,” “Me in hospital, April ‘08″) and if you add in geotagging, it’d be a convenient way of keeping track. The patent details a system a little similar to Cover Flow, but when photos are flipped over to reveal a blank rear face, a user will have the option to annotate snaps with text entered on the keypad, and the text is permanently incorporated into the image file. If it makes it to reality, I hope they include that real “scribbling” option through touchscreen tech: I kinda miss writing on the back of my photos. [Patent via NewScientist]