Android 12 now lets you use front-facing cameras, facial expressions to navigate your phone

I have NO doubt that some people will find this useful,
but I'm absolutely not one of them.

Do you understand what an accessibility feature is? It's OK if you don't.

Accessibility features are for those who are disabled in some way, or differently abled.

Imagine someone with an impairment in motion and motor skills, who cannot easily tap the screen of their smartphone to operate it. Well, they might enjoy being able to operate their phone by some head movements.

Most of use are fortunate in that we can take these simple tasks for granted: like tapping your screen. But there are people out there who don't have that luxury, and for them this sort of feature can literally change their lives.

I don't know about Android, but in iOS and iPhone, there is a whole suite of built in and free accessibility features that are amazingly well thought out and can enable many people to live more normal lives. I would urge people to have some empathy for those who need these features and learn about them.

The only people who look bad are the ones who criticize these features without realizing what they are intended for...even after it's noted in the article and further, these comments point that out.

I think they are good. But we will still look like monkeys. :-). That is not obvious to you?

It’s my choice when to apply my sense of humour not anybody else’s choice. And I stand by my humour. :-). 🦧 You May not find it funny but countless others do.

Ahh gees. Forget it

The headline should be clearer, but to be fair, the article mentions accessibility twice in the first paragraph. This is a perfect example of how most people simply don't even consider accessibility or the disabled community in their daily lives.

You are right. i was not looking at it that way.

mr.izo: "don't use accessibility as a excuse for exploitation of personal rights etc."

Don't use data collection paranoia as an excuse to advocate against accessibility features. If you don't like it -- and you're lucky enough to not need it -- then don't use it.

for the last time: i'm talking about face recognition/tracking built features in android itself, not some disability app. as you already know by now, "not using" aka switching settings off is not an option in smartphone world, it gets override with every update etc or/and is not really turned off from start.
if any, than google is exploiting disability community, to promote/exploit data collection from masses. when you people will learn your personal data is nothing something anybody could play with, how many lawsuits against big players do you need more to acknowledge this?

On iOS, face recognition/facial tracking is done locally on the device, not requiring any server communication. I agree that Google definitely is voracious in wanting to take up user's data, but in this case I would be shocked if this function didn't abide solely on the device itself. No reason for it to go through a server, and it would render the feature useless in areas with no reception, which isn't too great for a feature that users depend upon.

If one is really concerned about Google's use of one's data, then one shouldn't even use an Android phone in the first place, but switch to Apple.

So the issue of privacy, while important, is not the issue here. It's simply that these are incredibly useful accessibility tools and as noted, to take them away would literally be cruel to the intended users.

it's not just some app for disable community, we're talking about smartphone os (used by billions of people), which will have incorporated this things in defoult.
sure, you can switch if "off" in settings, but we all know, how this story goes..

"These are accessibility features for those with certain disability needs."

My brother is a direct beneficiary, and hence kudos!

However, that's not how such new (arguably also quite intrusive) features are primarily positioned by our friendly monopolistic tech titans for their 3-4B users worlwide... Hence the creepiness factor must be considered, IMHO.

Perhaps China's recent backlash against their own tech titans may have some merits...?

"Indeed, it echoes concerns that motivate regulators and politicians in the West: that digital markets tend towards monopolies and that tech firms hoard data, abuse suppliers, exploit workers and undermine public morality.
...the big digital platforms also exploited their freedom to trample smaller firms. They stop merchants from selling on more than one platform. They deny food-delivery drivers and other gig workers basic benefits. The party wants to put an end to such misconduct. It is an ambition that many investors support." economist.com

The Economist wrote 2 thoughtful articles in this week's issue; one is https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/08/14/xi-jinpings-assault-on-tech-will-change-chinas-trajectory

About the rest --e.g., "smart speakers" (actually smart mikes, always snooping), Apple scan (again a laudable excuse), gmail autoreply (excuse to parse your emails with NLP bots), Amazon Storefront, Netflix "valued hours" https://www.businessinsider.com/netflixs-most-important-metric-2016-2?r=US&IR=T , FB tracking, MS feedback/Intune, mobile facescan/gestures-- they seem most often Analytics and ML (my daily job) used to intrude into our privacy.

These 5-10 tech titans are predating on more than 1/2 of mankind, who can't function anylonger today w/o an Android phone or Windows/Chromebook laptop. Or w/o a search and access to WW info, which should become an universal basic human right, IMHO.

These features are not meant as some sort of novelty but as accessibility features for those with motor disability needs.

For those with those type of needs, these type of features can be a godsend.

I don't know how well they work in Android but Apple has had something like this for a while and they work extremely well. Android seems late to the game, but better late than never. Apple invests very heavily in built in accessibility features for all of its devices.