According to XDA developers, Google has added a new feature called collectively Camera Switches to the beta version of the Android Accessibility Suite. It is a facial expression recognition feature that allows people with disabilities to communicate with their phones without having to use their voices. The new features are not available on Google Play yet because they were added to the Android 12 beta version.
The previous Android versions included developer APIs for creating apps such as menuing systems driven by voice commands for disabled individuals. Google’s recent version includes new features that enable developers to make applications that address six unique facial signals: opening mouth, raising eyebrows, smiling, looking right, looking left, and looking up. Developers are allowed to combine any such action with their selection commands. An app can reply by launching a highlighted file, for instance, if a user has opened his mouth.
Users can regulate the degree of gesture recognition sensitivity to prevent undesirable command execution or to watch people with limited facial mobility more closely. The setup software also let us select the number of switches that aid a device to detect a specific motion. This allows developers to construct commands that are executed only when they recognize the specified number of unique movements. It also enables the switching on and off of a camera.
The software displays a camera icon on the screen to ensure that users know when Camera Switches uses the camera. In addition to this, users are assured that the images captured by Camera Switches are not stored anywhere. As the Camera Switches consumes a lot of power, Google suggests using it only when the phone is plugged in.
Source: https://techxplore.com/news/2021-08-google-facial-recognition-android-accessibility.html
Tanushree Shenwai is a consulting intern at MarktechPost. She is currently pursuing her B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology(IIT), Bhubaneswar. She is a Data Science enthusiast and has a keen interest in the scope of application of artificial intelligence in various fields. She is passionate about exploring the new advancements in technologies and their real-life application.
