Apple buys German eye tracking firm SensoMotoric Instruments
Apple has entered into an agreement to purchase German company SensoMotoric Instruments -- a company noted for hardware and software for eye tracking sensors, useful for augmented reality.
Citing sources familiar with the matter, MacRumors on Monday reported that Apple has acquired eye tracking hardware manufacturer SensoMotoric Instruments. The company's hardware is currently used in for augmented reality applications, early autism detection in children, brain mapping and neurology, vision science, psychology, physical training, and more.
Apple confirmed the acquisition to Axios by offering its standard statement, "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."
The current technology developed by SensoMotoric Instruments records and tracks a wearer's gaze in real-time, 120 times per second. The technology potentially reduces input lag, cutting down on motion sickness when the perception of movement doesn't match a shift in perspective.
SensoMotoric Instruments has its headquarters in Teltow, Germany, with a satellite office in Boston, Mass. The terms of the deal, and the status of the company's existing employees, is unknown at this time. Neither Apple nor SensoMotoric responded to AppleInsider's requests for comment.
Apple's Vice President of Corporate Law representing Delaware's Vineyard Capital Corporation, granted power of attorney to a German law firm to represent the presumed shell company. The shell company then purchased SensoMotoric Instruments on June 16.
The technology will likely not find its way into the "iPhone 8," but Apple is rumored to be working on a set of Smart Glasses. Publicly, the company only recently moved into the sector with iOS 11's ARKit.
Apple Vice President Craig Federighi announced at WWDC that ARKit is coming to iOS 11, expected to launch in the fall. Federighi noted that Apple's integration with iOS and iPhone hardware allowed for the technology, that was being previewed at the time to Lego, Ikea, and other companies.
ARKit will be limited to the iPhone 6s and newer, and the iPad Pro and more recent.
Citing sources familiar with the matter, MacRumors on Monday reported that Apple has acquired eye tracking hardware manufacturer SensoMotoric Instruments. The company's hardware is currently used in for augmented reality applications, early autism detection in children, brain mapping and neurology, vision science, psychology, physical training, and more.
Apple confirmed the acquisition to Axios by offering its standard statement, "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."
The current technology developed by SensoMotoric Instruments records and tracks a wearer's gaze in real-time, 120 times per second. The technology potentially reduces input lag, cutting down on motion sickness when the perception of movement doesn't match a shift in perspective.
SensoMotoric Instruments has its headquarters in Teltow, Germany, with a satellite office in Boston, Mass. The terms of the deal, and the status of the company's existing employees, is unknown at this time. Neither Apple nor SensoMotoric responded to AppleInsider's requests for comment.
Apple's Vice President of Corporate Law representing Delaware's Vineyard Capital Corporation, granted power of attorney to a German law firm to represent the presumed shell company. The shell company then purchased SensoMotoric Instruments on June 16.
The technology will likely not find its way into the "iPhone 8," but Apple is rumored to be working on a set of Smart Glasses. Publicly, the company only recently moved into the sector with iOS 11's ARKit.
Apple Vice President Craig Federighi announced at WWDC that ARKit is coming to iOS 11, expected to launch in the fall. Federighi noted that Apple's integration with iOS and iPhone hardware allowed for the technology, that was being previewed at the time to Lego, Ikea, and other companies.
ARKit will be limited to the iPhone 6s and newer, and the iPad Pro and more recent.
Comments
Reading about this reminds me how much I miss the "eye control" feature of my old Canon Elan IIe. It recognized what zone of the frame you were looking at, and used that zone to make settings decisions. It would also stop down if you looked in a particular off-frame direction.
I've never learned why Canon abandoned this.
This will make the first 40 years of mouse and finger selection seem very primitive indeed.
-Virtual and Augmented reality
-Store shelves, websites, museums applications using remote eye tracking
-Machine learning for self driving cars
-Medical Applications
-Sporting applications
The following camera looks left at ~0:20 and the character stays perfectly in place moving back into frame:
It's a bit like Who Framed Roger Rabbit seeing cartoon characters in real life like that.
The following test measured object drift after leaving the room (a depth sensor would have prevented the object being placed in front of the wall):
The more sources of data they can use for tracking, the better. Eye tracking is useful for AR/VR but even simple things like checking if you are looking at your phone in order to determine if Raise to Wake should activate or not would prevent unintended screen activation. It can have some applications for HealthKit too.
The iPhone used to look like this during testing, the touch panel on the left just dealt with input:
They need all sorts of extra hardware in prototypes in order to debug it properly. Glasses would need some sensors in them, accelerometer, gyro, camera to tell what is being looked at but the data processing can be done on an iOS device, either wirelessly or via a tether.
The following shows the view through the Microsoft HoloLens:
The unit is far too bulky but the capability is good. The internals look like this:
https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/6/11376442/microsoft-hololens-holograms-parts-teardown-photos-hands-on
The battery packs at the sides take up a lot of space and the visor is bulky. Even if Apple built the same thing as that, they could build it much less bulky. It would probably be best to begin with to have a clip-on device that housed all the battery and processing instead of putting that weight on the head. The glasses should be as small and lightweight as possible, almost indistinguishable from normal glasses. Having a cable hanging down the back like a TV presenter mic pack would be ok.