Home technology software interns at eBay create an app for hands-free online shopping

Interns at eBay create an app for hands-free online shopping

Software

CIO Bulletin
2018-09-12

A team of interns at eBay has come up with a new concept app called HeadGaze that would help people with disabilities navigate around online content and apps. The team was led by Muratcan Cicek who regularly uses assistive technology to navigate and get around reading and working. He developed the tool with some assistance with the aim of being of some help to people with motor impairments to shop online.

The app uses the front camera of the iPhone X and Apple’s ARKit framework to track head motions. This was done by unlocking the potential of the TrueDepth camera that iPhone X uses for its Face Unlock feature.

Although there are apps that have already introduced this kind of system, HeadGaze is the first to use it in such a straight-forward way for a practical application. Considering the concept app is coming from just a team of interns at eBay, it is odd that big companies with a lot of resources to create softwares and apps are not investing in producing technologies that could help make lives easier for those with disabilities. Cicek is currently working with his team on an eye-ball tracking app that would further help in the matter. eBay has made the concept app available on GitHub.com.