HONOR, the Chinese consumer electronics company well known for its smartphones, will be presenting ground-breaking artificial intelligence (AI) technology this weekend at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2024 in Barcelona, Spain. With this new technology, still in experimental stage, certain functions of a vehicle – including moving it – can be controlled by the owner using his or her eyes.
It sounds like science fiction but HONOR will be offering it in the new Magic6 Series of smartphones that will be launched at the event. For now, there are four functions available – start engine, stop engine, move forward, and move backwards – which can be activated by looking at icons on the phone’s screen.
AI-powered eye-tracking
The secret is an AI-powered eye-tracking capability which monitors eye movement with a sensor on the phone. There is therefore no need to touch the screen or say any command. Even James Bond never had such an advanced feature although he did drive a BMW 7-Series around using a phone with some sort of remote control.
Of course, the phone will need to interface with the car’s systems and how this is done is not explained. But in this age of software-defined vehicles, sophisticated electronic systems and advanced connectivity, it would be a matter of carmakers working with HONOR to create the interface. As it is, smartphones can already be used as digital keys with certain models.
Revolution in human-device communication
The technology is still under development and is likely to have more capabilities than just the four that are available now. The eye-tracking technology will probably be used for other phone-related functions, reducing the need to touch the screen. HONOR believes that this AI technology has the potential to revolutionize the future landscape of human-device communication.
