A lot of us take certain actions we do everyday for granted, such as swiping up and down, left and right on our phones, tapping on buttons, and so on. However there might be some who are disabled who might find such simple actions to be difficult or impossible. However eBay is hoping to change that with an experiment called HeadGaze.
This experiment leverages Apple’s ARKit and the iPhone X’s front-facing camera which tracks the user’s head as they browse the app. They also designed it so that certain head movements can be interpreted as gestures, which means that users will be able to use head head to navigate the app and make purchases without having to use their hands.
According to eBay intern Muratcan Cicek who is also a PhD Candidate at University of California, Santa Cruz, “Specifically, this app empowers people to browse and buy their perfect items with simple head motions. For example, by pointing your head toward the up and down buttons, the app scrolls to different daily deals in different categories (e.g. a vertical swipe). By pointing your head toward left and right buttons, the app swipes items one after another horizontally (e.g. a horizontal swipe) like a carousel.”
At the moment HeadGaze isn’t built into the main eBay app at the moment, but they are available via GitHub as an open-source project for those who might want to implement the technology into their own apps.
Filed in . Read more about Augmented Reality (AR), Ebay, iOS and iPhone.