YOU may think one camera is quite enough for your video cellphone, but before long phones might have two. Callers are more likely to get the impression you are looking them in the eye.
Today鈥檚 video-capable cellphones do not give users good eye-to-eye contact, because people look at the screen rather than the camera. This slightly off-centre look makes conversations surprisingly awkward and unnatural, says Andrew Herbert, head of Microsoft鈥檚 research lab in Cambridge, UK.
Psychologists back his view. 鈥淓ye contact is very important because it regulates communication,鈥� says Kerstin Dautenhahn, an expert in social communication at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. Lack of direct eye contact hampers communication, Dautenhahn says, and it is one reason she doesn鈥檛 enjoy using the technology: 鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 feel like you are really talking to that person,鈥� she says.
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So Microsoft has developed a twin-camera system called i2i. It works by comparing the images from the two cameras and using software to construct a 3D computer model of your face in real time. This model is then rotated to give the caller the impression you are looking directly at them. Originally developed to improve video conferencing, the technology can easily be transfered to phones.
鈥淚t would be almost the equivalent of drilling a hole in the screen and poking a camera through it,鈥� says lead researcher Andrew Blake, who presented his work at a Microsoft conference in Redmond, Washington, last week. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like a virtual camera.鈥�
There鈥檚 just one hitch: mobile phones don鈥檛 yet have enough processing power to generate real-time 3D images. But when they do, Blake says the extra camera wouldn鈥檛 make phones much more expensive, since CCD camera chips are getting cheaper.
