Samsung Electronics won’t be the only company that gets a fancy eye-tracking feature. A start-up company called uMoove, which has been developing this type of technology for three years, says it will offer eye- and head-tracking to anyone, including device makers like Apple and software developers who make mobile apps.
Based in Israel, has been working on a technology for smartphones and tablets to track eye and head movements using a device’s front-facing camera. It said on Tuesday that very soon it would offer a software tool kit to apply its technology to applications.
Moti Krispil, a founder and chief executive of uMoove, said in an interview that it was crucial that eye- and head-tracking technology be made available to any type of mobile product because it needs the support of thousands of software developers to create a real impact on the way people interact with devices Initially, the uMoove tool kit will work with Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android software systems, he said. If the feature were limited to just one phone, like the next Samsung phone, its potential would be stifled, he said.
“We made a very important decision that the technology is so diverse that we cannot just allow it to be confined,†he said. He said uMoove would release its tool kit in a few months. On Tuesday, it started allowing people to register for its software tool kit on its Web site.
Applications using eye- and head-tracking can transform the way people use their devices to do things like browse the Web, play games and read books. The technology was initially developed to assist disabled persons, Mr. Krispil said. The idea formed around one of the start-up’s founders, who has a relative who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a disease that eventually causes paralysis, making it impossible for a person to use today’s mobile devices.
UMoove’s technology uses a front-facing camera to track head and eye movements, either separately or in combination. The technique can be used even with the low-resolution cameras found on cheap cellphones, Mr. Krispin said. Head tilts can control scrolling, and eye movements can control more precise actions like drawing shapes; staring at an object on the screen for a few seconds can select it. Another potential action is a head nod to hit “O.K.†to answer a command prompt.
Mr. Krispil said the start-up has been collaborating with large device manufacturers for several months, but he would not name the companies because of nondisclosure agreements. I reported last week that a Samsung employee who had tried the phone said that the next Galaxy phone’s most interesting feature was its ability to scroll based on where the user looks. Mr. Krispil could not confirm whether Samsung’snext Galaxy smartphone, to be introduced on Thursday in New York, would use uMoove’s technology.
UMoove has 20 employees and received $2 million in financing last year from a company that Mr. Krispil would not name because the partnership had not yet been made public. The company’s four founders invested $800,000 to start the business in 2010, he said.
