Remember that selfie from the Oscars? That image, featuring a gaggle of celebrities all cramming into the shot, set a Twitter record, now standing at over 3.4m retweets. The word "selfie" was formally recognised by the authoritative Oxford Dictionaries last year - but is it stretching the definition of the word when there"s a whole bunch of people in the shot?
Huawei certainly seems to think so, having coined the term "groufie" with the recent launch of its latest flagship, the Ascend P7. In fact, as The Telegraph reports, the company has gone even further, applying to register the word - a portmanteau of the words "group" and "selfie" - as a trademark in the US, China, France, Germany and Russia.
Huawei"s definition of "groufie" seems to be more than just a selfie with several people in it though. The Ascend P7 features an 8MP front-facing camera, and software designed to make it easy for users to capture panoramic group shots in the selfie style.
The company explained that as more people squeeze into a selfie-type image, the background - whether a beautiful beach or a stunning cityscape - ends up being obscured by all those in the photo. Taking a "groufie" with the Ascend P7"s panoramic feature, says Huawei, offers the best of both worlds, enabling everyone to get into shot without having to cram together, while still allowing the background behind them to be visible in the final image.
Of course, let"s not pretend that the word "groufie" doesn"t sound ridiculous (although "selfie" isn"t much more elegant), but Huawei may have a point when it comes to panoramic self-shots. While all those celebs were squeezing into the comparatively limited field of vision of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 that captured the group snap at the Oscars, poor Liza Minnelli ended up pushed out of the shot, right at the very back.
That might not have happened with the Ascend P7 and its 8MP groufie-cam; Ellen DeGeneres even said that she wished Bradley Cooper (who was holding the device) had a longer arm so that more celebs could have been in the pic - a problem that the P7"s cam might have solved.
But Huawei isn"t the only company to be giving its front-facing cameras a boost. Microsoft"s newly-acquired Nokia division is reportedly working on a new Windows Phone, codenamed "Superman", with a 5MP camera up front.
Source: The Telegraph
Images: 1) @TheEllenShow; 2) The Telegraph / Matthew Sparkes; 3) Huawei; 4) OK!