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Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

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Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#31

Post by neverokay »

dmicah wrote: post #21
jsheard wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really likely to be downstream of the Vision Pro implementation? I would think that eye-tracking with specialized hardware at a fixed position very close to the eye is very different to doing it at a distance with a general purpose front facing camera.

Typically eye-trackers work by illuminating the eyes with near infrared light and using infrared cameras. This creates a higher contrast image of the pupils, etc. I assume Apple is doing this in the Vision Pro. Eye-tracking can also be done with just visible light, though. Apple has the benefit of knowing where all the user interface elements are on screen, so eye-tracking in this on the iPhone or iPad doesn't need t…

So there isn’t much more to it than getting a good resolution image of the eye from any distance, every millisecond.

Precision is the issue because we are mostly moving our eyes in about 8 directions, there’s no precision because we don’t know how to measure focusing of our eye lens with a camera yet (unless that too is just a matter of getting a picture).

Squinting would be the closest thing to physically expressing focusing. So the camera needs to know I’m looking left with my eye, followed by a squint to achieve precision. Seems stressful though.

Gonna need AI just to do noise cancelling of involuntary things your eyes do like pupil dilation, blinking.

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#32

Post by Tagbert »

s3p wrote: post #7

I wonder if this announcement had anything to do with the bombshells OpenAI and Google dropped this week. Couldn’t this have been part of WWDC next month?

As Terramex pointed out this is tied to a particular, relevant event.

It’s also pretty common for Apple to preannounce some smaller features that are too specialized to be featured in the WWDC announcements. This gives them some attention when they would be lost and buried in WWDC footnotes.

It is also probably an indication that WWDC will be full of new features and only the most impactful will be part of the keynote.

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#33

Post by Tagbert »

simlevesque wrote: post #8
dagmx wrote: post #2

This is one major advantage to Apple sharing a foundation across all their devices. Vision Pro introduced eye tracking to their systems as a new input modality, and now it trickles down to their other platforms. I am surprised CarPlay didn’t have voice control before this though.

CarPlay devices aren't really powerful.

CarPlay devices (car components) are essentially playing a streaming video of a hidden display generated by the phone. CarPlay also lets those devices send back touch events to trigger buttons and other interactions. Very little process is done on the vehicle.

BTW if you are plugged in to CarPlay and take a screen shot, it will include the hidden CarPlay screen.

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#34

Post by Shank »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #28
Shank wrote: post #13

> Vehicle Motion Cues is a new experience for iPhone and iPad that can help reduce motion sickness for passengers in moving vehicles. This excites me so, so much! I can't really use my phone as a passenger in a car without getting motion sick after 1-2 minutes. This seems like it might be a promising thing to try.

Have you noticed any correlation between how hungry you are and how fast motion sickness kicks in?

It’s really interesting you say this. Is this a known correlation? I feel like now that you mention it, it’s incredibly fast if I’m hungry.

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#36

Post by devmor »

I am excited for Vocal Cues - my main frustration with Siri is how poorly it comprehends even explicit instructions.

One thing I wish Apple would implement is some kind of gesture control. The camera can detect fine details of face movement, it would be nice if that were leveraged to track hands that aren't touching the screen.

For an example, if I have my iPhone or iPad on the desk in front of me, and a push notification that I don't need obstructs the content on the screen, I would love to be able to swipe my hand up towards the phone to dismiss it.

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#39

Post by devmor »

dakial1 wrote: post #37

Eye tracking is not an accessibility feature, it is an advertising optimization feature disguised as an accessibility feature.

Eye tracking is absolutely an accessibility feature. Just because you don't need it, and it can be abused, does not mean it isn't an absolutely game changing feature for some people.

Re: Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking

#40

Post by mistrial9 »

Tagbert wrote: post #30
snoman wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every attention thief is absolutely thrilled at the idea of tracking your eyes. Let’s all imagine the day where the YouTube free tier pauses ads when you’re not actively looking at them. Shit. I’m turning into one of those negative downers. I’m sorry. I’ve had too much internet today.

If this is at all like the eye tracking in Vision Pro, it is only available to the OS and apps are not given access to the data.

for now - it is naive to think this is safe
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