Video call lens turns gestures into comic-style text bubbles for when you're on mute

With video calls now an unfortunate 2020 staple, unmuting your microphone to briefly agree with someone has become a common, awkward nuisance. Fortunately, a new video lens is providing a pretty stylish solution to this irritation.

Netflix engineer Cameron Hunter has made a video lens which detects gestures and displays word balloons in response, such as "Yes" for a thumbs up or "No" for closed fist. This means you can give your colleague's proposal for an Even More Casual Friday either clear support or emphatic disapproval without having to fumble for your unmute button.

"I realized that we take in more information visually than we can audibly," Hunter told Mashable. "My team members would wave or use thumbs up in video meetings as I'm sure many do. I'd also been learning ASL as part of a baby sign language course." Read more...