EyeMU enables users to interact with their screens without lifting a finger
As more people watch movies, edit video, read the news and keep up with social media on their smartphones, these devices have grown to accommodate the bigger screens and higher processing power needed for more demanding activities.
The problem with unwieldy phones is they frequently require a second hand or voice commands to operate — which can be cumbersome and inconvenient.
In response, researchers in the Future Interfaces Group at Carnegie Mellon University's Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) are developing a tool called EyeMU, which allows users to execute operations on a smartphone by combining gaze control and simple hand gestures.
"We asked the question, 'Is there a more natural mechanism to use to interact with the phone?' And the precursor for a lot of what we do is to look at something," said Karan Ahuja, a doctoral student in human-computer interaction.
Gaze analysis and prediction aren't new, but achieving an acceptable level of functionality on a smartphone would be a noteworthy advance.
"The eyes have what you would call the Midas touch problem,' said Chris Harrison, an associate professor in the HCII and director of the Future Interfaces Group. "You can't have a situation in which something happens on the phone everywhere you look. Too many applications would open."
