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Eye-tracking software could make video calls feel more lifelike

By Chris Stokel-Walker

31 May 2021

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Teaching over video calls can be challenging

Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images

A system that tracks your eye movements could help make video calls truer to life.

Shlomo Dubnov at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), was frustrated by the inability to smoothly teach an online music class during the coronavirus pandemic. “With the online setting, we miss a lot of these little non-verbal body gestures and communications,” he says.

With Ross Greer, a colleague at UCSD, he developed a machine learning system that monitors a presenter’s eye movements to track who they are looking at on screen, then lets…

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