Google Will Let You Control Your Chromebook With Your Face

Google is announcing a assortment of schoolroom and accessibility-focused ChromeOS features today, and 1 of nan standouts is being tin to powerfulness your instrumentality pinch your caput and facial expressions. The characteristic — aimed astatine those pinch centrifugal impairments — was first announced successful early December, but it’s now rolling retired to overmuch users pinch compatible Chromebooks (Google recommends 8GB of RAM aliases more).

This isn’t Google’s first foray into nan face-as-a-cursor space. It antecedently made an open-source AI accessibility instrumentality for Windows games called Project Gameface, which was too announced for Android. Here’s a sample video from Google of nan tech successful action, demoed by package technologist Amanda Lin Dietz who helped create it.

Additionally, Google is too teasing a boatload of caller Chromebooks for 2025, pinch complete 20 caller devices successful its modular Chromebook and Chromebook Plus lines coming this year. That estimate whitethorn beryllium a spot of a stretch, since Google seems to beryllium counting nan Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus that launched backmost successful October, but it does too count nan just-announced 14-inch Lenovo Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 and overmuch to come.

Along pinch laptops aimed astatine educators and students, Google’s sewage a caller batch of classroom-focused ChromeOS features called Class Tools. These fto teachers to personification real-time powerfulness of their students’ screens. Once a pairing codification is shared, educators will beryllium tin to nonstop students nonstop contented connected their Chromebook screens, flip connected unrecorded captions aliases translations for them, remotely position their screens, and banal a student’s activity pinch nan afloat class.

In summation to these collaborative tools, Google Classroom is too getting an integration pinch Figma’s FigJam, allowing teachers to delegate online whiteboards to students for brainstorming and group work. Maybe nan cognition of FigJam pinch nan teacher’s expertise to snoop connected students’ screens will uncover who’s really doing each nan activity for nan group.