As we reported a few days ago, Samsung will take advantage of its presence at CES 2020 to present a new technology. It will be called SelfieType and it allows the front camera to interpret finger movements on an imaginary keyboard.
Samsung had clearly indicated it, CES 2020 will be the occasion to present in more detail some avant-garde technologies concocted by its C-Lab incubation program. Among them, SelfieType, a technology mentioned in a press release at the end of December. It allows the front camera of a mobile device to interpret typing on a flat surface.
To achieve this, the selfie sensor continuously transmits (during the use of the virtual keyboard) RAW images to an artificial intelligence system. The AI is responsible for analyzing finger movements in real-time and interpreting them. The technique allows being able to enter text without directly handling the smartphone.
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Samsung SelfieType: A real progress or a bad idea?
SelfieType requires no additional hardware and is very adaptable to various mobile devices. It includes smartphones, tablets and laptops, as reported by Samsung in its presentation. This technology would however only be available in English for now (through a QWERTY keyboard). However, it could support other languages if it succeeds.
The fact remains that SelfieType has a big drawback as it stands. It is primarily intended for users who are used to typing text without looking at their keyboard. This technology will inevitably be of little relevance to people who need to keep an eye on it. A problem to which Samsung will have to find a solution if it wants to make SelfieType really useful to a maximum of users.
It is however possible that this typing technique is above all a technological demonstration. In addition; it is a good publicity for C-Lab researchers.
