Video: 3D Eye Tracking from TAT, the guys behind the T-Mobile G1 UI
By Thomas Ricker 
posted February 24th 2009 8:50AM
posted February 24th 2009 8:50AM
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posted February 24th 2009 8:50AM
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If you knew what it took to do eye tracking and have it constantly on you would know it makes no sense to implement it on a phone just for UI eye candy.
On a camera it is ok to do face detection (which is easier to do than eye tracking) because it is momentary.
The evidence from the vid and just pure common sense points to them no using eye tracking. Just because it says eye tracking doesnt mean its true.
Oh yeah front camera resolution is weak.
Ok, so... this technology has been around for years, and requires enough computing power to it "makes no sense" as an eye-candy measure on current or near-future phones.
So it's obvious that they _couldn't_ be using it in a concept that wouldn't see implementation in a production phone for at least 5 years, when phones might be powerful enough to throw away that kind of processing on UI?
Oh, and it'd actually require more resolution than a typical (VGA) camera on the front of the phone -- and it's _not_ like phones 5 years from now will all have 3MP front and 27MP rear cameras anyway. (Arguments based on the optics quality or sensor noise would carry much more weight than resolution, given current cameraphone trends...)
Sending texts kill my phone five times as fast as just using it for calls. i can imagine how the battery would like having the camera on all the time.
That's pretty slick.
The Instinct has a "camera scroll" function is uses in it's web browser. Basically you can pan around a web page by tilting the camera. It's pretty hit and miss though, lighting has to be good, and it has to have some good contrast to pick up on.
If this works like the Instinct feature it will just be frustrating. If it works like one would hope it would, then it will be the best thing since Apple built E.N.I.A.C.
WOW! that crazy, i would love that !
what an optical illusion, wow please bring, lol
Absolutely amazing.
I like the porn music in the video too.
It's an interesting concept but I'm not sure I see the practical reasons for using this. Why would I want to look at the icons on the screen "from the side"? What advantage does that give me?
I'm not saying there's no use in "pretty-ing" up interfaces but this kinda thing requires way too much processing power (if it's real eye tracking) to be worth for the sole reason of making things "3d".
My question is; where can I at least get that theme?
-LeiTxo
If it is more than a proof of concept/visualisation then I think its more accurately 'facetracking' and tracking the position of the eye sockets. you dont need a high quality camera for this and there are many DIY multi-touch systems built on similar concepts using nothing more than webcams.
As many have pointed out, true eyetracking requires an IR light (like those old light guns/ Wiimotes) to shine into the user's eye and reflected into an (IR)camera in order to pick up the postion of the pupil which is then translated into co-ordinates. I would say its pretty much an impossible task on a mobile device because you would have to constantly callibrate the position as the mobile device is....mobile. i would like to hear if anyone disagrees!
eyetracking is the tits, and cant wait for the day Im controlling my Desktop with my eyes.
It is very very cool, I can see many possible interactions as well as slick transitions and GUI.
damn that sweet, i so want that.
Ummm... the video camera they used to make this video doesn't have eyes and the effect still worked for the camera. This is totally doable with the accelerometer and uses less processor cycles than with an eye tracking camera.