App allows you to control your smartphone via visual inputs

Eye-tracking

On the computer front, we have seen some recent developments in the field of visual control during gaming, however, now this feature is also being developed for the smartphones. A team of researchers, which includes an Indian-origin graduate student are developing an application that will make it possible for the users to navigate through applications or play games by using eye movements.

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According to the MIT Technology Review, the application being developed by the  team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Georgia and Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Informatics is trained for catching the eye movements from 1 cm distance in case of smartphones and 1.7 cm on tablets.

Aditya Khosla, who is a co-author of the study has commented that the application will undergo more improvements and will gain on precision as the amount of data that is available to it increases.

So far, the application, which is named GazeCapture has been used by the researchers outside the lab testing environment for collecting the data related to the ways that people look at their devices in different conditions.

For calibration, the user has to gaze at two predefined dots on the screen. The dots are already marked with L and R for simplicity. Tapping the left or the right side of the screen would finalize the calibration for each side.

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The information captured by the application was first tested on the iTracker app that you could run on your iOS devices. The device was able to capture your face and understand the position of your head and the eyes to know exactly where your gaze will land on the screen.

At present 1,500 people have used the application. According to Khosla, by the time 10,000 people use the application, the error rate will go down to half a centimeter and will make the app suitable for most eye tracking applications.

I have seen a similar concept being implemented on a computer and being used for Assasin’s Creed games. With just the movement of eyes, the game was able to tell where you are looking on the map. This feature is quite useful for navigation in games as it will give a real-time feel.

[appbox appstore id1025021075]

Photo Credits: Apple iTunes

Featured image source: uploadvr.com

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