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All Chromebooks come with a camera or two, so Chrome OS is no stranger to handling camera inputs. While the camera software on Chrome OS is still a bit of a work in progress across the board, the general camera functions are there and have been there for quite some time. What we are currently seeing in the Chromium Bug Tracker, however, shows us that more complicated controls are coming for external cameras.
You can have a look at this bug report and see pretty clear evidence that external cameras are getting ready to get some interesting new controls baked right into Chrome OS: specifically the “ability to control connected camera pan / tilt / zoom.”
If you’re asking what that would be used for, you are not alone! My first thought goes to enterprise use in meeting rooms where you’ll have groups of people around a single, external camera. Google is clearly envisioning more use cases as well, outlining that in Chrome OS 74 “External USB cameras, such as webcams, USB microscopes, and document cameras, are now supported by the Google Camera app.”
I could see a situation where a document scanner or microscope would need the ability to be have pan/tilt/zoom controls and would add even more reason for this feature to get implemented. I do think that being able to move and reposition the camera in a board room will be a more common use for this new ability, but it is fantastic to see this sort of feature coming for Chrome OS in general.
