No matter where your webcam is located, it will always be compensated by the person you are talking to. The end result is that we hardly ever look people in the eye when we talk to them via video chat. However, Microsoft has created a smart solution.
According to Liliputing, the latest Windows 10 Insider Preview Build (20175) announcement contains details of a new feature that Microsoft calls “Eye Contact”. She uses artificial intelligence to “adjust her gaze on video calls to make it appear that she is looking directly at the camera.” So there is no need to remember to look at the webcam instead of the person on the screen, which no one does, as it just isn’t natural.
The only downside to Eye Contact, at least for now, is the fact that it is limited to working only on Surface Pro X. This is because Pro X contains Microsoft’s ARM SQ1 processor, which it developed in association with Qualcomm and includes the “artificial intelligence capabilities” required for gaze adjustment to work, according to Microsoft. If you have a Pro X and have access to this latest version of Windows Preview Build, then the feature can be activated through the Surface app. After that, it should work with any video application that uses the webcam.
Considering that Intel x86 processors are capable of handling AI-intensive video games, it is likely that Microsoft will eventually expand the Eye Contact feature to other models in its Surface range, and hopefully Windows 10 in general. After that, we can all look at the people we are talking to in the video chat and know that they are also seeing us looking directly at them, albeit thanks to AI.
