Future Smartphone's Might be Controlled by Eye-Movement

[dgstorm]

This story isn't directly Android related, and, in fact, it's an Apple story, but the technology and the included visual trick are potentially intriguing enough to share here.

There's a slick new technology patent that Apple recently applied for. This isn't a technology that will come anytime soon, but it is definitely something to keep an eye out for (and that is actually an intended pun, which you will see in a moment). The technology Apple is trying to patent is basically a control mechanism for your mobile device which uses eye-movement.

There is a big biological technical hurdle that Apple must overcome to make this work, and they believe they are close to that. The problem is called "Troxler fading" which is a phenomenon which results from the way our brains interpret input from our eyes. Here's a quote with the details, but we also included an animated gif in the first reply thread below to help illustrate the issue:

“Troxler fading is a phenomenon of visual perception that the human brain uses to cope with blind spots on the retina, which is the light-sensitive tissue lining of the inner surface of the eye. One result of this phenomenon is that when one fixates on a particular point, objects in one’s peripheral vision will fade away and disappear.”

In Apple's patent filing, they outline several different methods they believe will overcome the Troxler fading effect. Here's one example,

“In one configuration, altering the position of the movable indicator may include providing a command to an input device driver that prompts the GUI to render the movable indicator at a position in the GUI different from the position associated with the user’s point of gaze within the GUI. In this manner, data from an input device to the input device driver may be preempted such that the measure for counteracting the perceptual fading of the movable indicator is implemented without action on behalf of the user.”

Be sure to check out the animated gif in the thread below to see the "trippy" way it fools your brain. We intend that Google and/or other in the Android world can bring this type of tech to the forefront as well.

Source: BGR

 

[dgstorm]

Here's that animated gif to show off the Troxler Fading effect. Be sure to focus your vision on the cross in the center of the image and wait for a few moments to see what happens!

 

[liftedplane]

Here's that animated gif to show off the Troxler Fading effect. Be sure to focus your vision on the cross in the center of the image and wait for a few moments to see what happens!

My Eyes are all kinds of messed up, with both open it's nearly impossible for me to fully focus on the cross and make the dots disappear for any longer than a second, with one eye only it works as intended.

pretty neat trick though.

oh. the reason this doesn't work is because I have Refractive Amblyopia (Amblyopia mdash AAPOS and the vision in my right eye is so poor that it makes it nearly impossible for me to focus on any one item with it.


edit: fixed SwiftKey errors.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

Shortly after the last one disappears, my eyes automatically seems to shift just a bit like they're scanning and the dots come back. It was all I could do to get them to stay gone for more than a couple seconds as well.

This kind of tech will be a great thing though. I think of my fiance's uncle who's in his forties and suffered a stroke. He's affected on one side and still uses a smartphone, but tech like this could potentially make that much easier for him.

We've already seen Samsung introduce smart stay and smart scroll with limited eye tracking, so it's not too hard to believe that this could be a reality some day, but as evidenced by the eye trick in the second post, there are variables that I never would've even thought of.

 

[swc2001]

Apple making a patent on this seems kinda like bull crap!!
I mean Samsung did something VERY similar to this on the S4 did they not?

 

[Ollie]

That's how Apple rolls.

Step 1. Mock other OEMs about gimmicky products.
Step 2. See which features people actually use.
Step 3. Patent the aforementioned features that they mocked.
Step 4. Release the same features in their products while attaching adjectives such as "magical", "unapologetically", etc and trying to pass it off as their own.
Step 5. Sue anyone that uses the prior art.

 

[PereDroid]

*yawn*. This is so lame. Sorry. How lazy are we? I can't even be bothered to lift a finger now??

oh. the reason this doesn't work is because I have Refractive Amblyopia (Amblyopia mdash AAPOS and the vision in my right eye is so poor that it makes it nearly impossible for me to focus on any one item with it.

Just close the right eye. Works for me. (Although I am totally blind in my right eye).

 

[eddiekeyton]

That image is cool lol I've been looking at it for like 10 minutes

 

[liftedplane]

*yawn*. This is so lame. Sorry. How lazy are we? I can't even be bothered to lift a finger now??



Just close the right eye. Works for me. (Although I am totally blind in my right eye).

That's exactly what I did... then I closed my left eye and could barely see it.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

 

[cr6]

Its not about being lazy, it's about advancing tech. If we didn't do that we'd still be riding horses to work and using candles as a light source.
Just sayin....

S5 tap'n

 

[94lt1]

Innovation is not the product of rational thinking.. Mark twain... Baaahahahahahaha

 

[PereDroid]

ME LIKE EYE CONTROLLED STUFF!