# An app to alert the viewer to teleprompters **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 8, 2017, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-app-to-alert-the-viewer-to-teleprompters/793112 "2017-08-08T17:51:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/channing_idaho_banks/32/250_2.png) [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-app-to-alert-the-viewer-to-teleprompters/793112/1 "2017-08-08T17:51:50Z")
It’s not always obvious to know when you see someone reading from a teleprompter. It should be easy to program a computer to analyze eye movement. Is there an app that can do this? ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-app-to-alert-the-viewer-to-teleprompters/793112/2 "2017-08-08T22:09:00Z")
Except for speeches, the teleprompter is usually mounted [on or near a studio camera](https://cms-assets.tutsplus.com/uploads/users/930/posts/27656/image/teleprompter-view.jpg), which the person is facing anyway. For speeches where the cameras are too far from the podium, you see [the little glass panels](https://www.freetelepromptersoftware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/speechteleprompter2.jpg) next to the podium. Why does it matter whether the speaker is using a teleprompter, rather than reading off[cue cards](http://wwwcdn.printmag.com/wp-content/uploads/cue-cards-feresten.png), or a [script](https://therivardreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/scottball_uiw_lutz_agnese_maya_president_incarnate_word_chairman_president_8-29-2016-3.jpg)? ---
**Author:** ![Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/channing_idaho_banks/32/250_2.png) [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-app-to-alert-the-viewer-to-teleprompters/793112/3 "2017-08-08T22:15:01Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Except for speeches, the teleprompter is usually mounted [on or near a studio camera](https://cms-assets.tutsplus.com/uploads/users/930/posts/27656/image/teleprompter-view.jpg), which the person is facing anyway. For speeches where the cameras are too far from the podium, you see [the little glass panels](https://www.freetelepromptersoftware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/speechteleprompter2.jpg) next to the podium. > > Why does it matter whether the speaker is using a teleprompter, rather than reading off[cue cards](http://wwwcdn.printmag.com/wp-content/uploads/cue-cards-feresten.png), or a [script](https://therivardreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/scottball_uiw_lutz_agnese_maya_president_incarnate_word_chairman_president_8-29-2016-3.jpg)? They are the same and I want an app that will identify this. ---
**Author:** ![Cayuga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Cayuga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cayuga)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-app-to-alert-the-viewer-to-teleprompters/793112/4 "2017-08-08T22:28:01Z")
The first step in developing an app is determining that the need/market for it exists. I appreciate that you want it for whatever reason, but I can’t imagine that a lot of people do. Still, I could be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-app-to-alert-the-viewer-to-teleprompters/793112/5 "2017-08-08T22:50:27Z")
> [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](#): > > It’s not always obvious to know when you see someone reading from a teleprompter. It should be easy to program a computer to analyze eye movement. You have two incongruous statements there. If it’s not always obvious, how would it be easy to program a computer to do it? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-app-to-alert-the-viewer-to-teleprompters/793112/6 "2017-08-08T22:53:03Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > You have two incongruous statements there. If it’s not always obvious, how would it be easy to program a computer to do it? Don’t you just add an “analyze eye movements” button to the keyboard? ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-app-to-alert-the-viewer-to-teleprompters/793112/7 "2017-08-08T23:02:51Z")
> [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](#): > > They are the same and I want an app that will identify this. How much are you offering? ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-app-to-alert-the-viewer-to-teleprompters/793112/8 "2017-08-08T23:20:59Z")
Assuming that eye movements corresponding to someone reading a telepromptor really are that distinct (which I am not convinced is true), your main problem is going to be that the resolution of a typical video image isn’t anywhere near high enough to track the position of the eye with enough accuracy for this to work. The human brain is the best pattern matching machine in the known universe. I think you will find that if your brain and eyes can’t figure it out, a computer isn’t going to be able to do any better. There’s a reason that eye trackers these days tend to look like this, instead of having people just stick a camera on the other side of the room: > **[Popular Science Homepage](https://www.popsci.com/)** > > Awe-inspiring science reporting, technology news, and DIY projects. Skunks to space robots, primates to climates. That's Popular Science, 145 years strong. ---
**Author:** ![xnylder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/bbce88/32.png) [@xnylder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xnylder)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2017, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-app-to-alert-the-viewer-to-teleprompters/793112/9 "2017-08-09T21:05:11Z")
Adding to what **engineer\_comp\_geek** wrote above: the problem can be relatively easy if you have a short distance to cover and little interference. Non-headset tech has been implemented for video games, and some laptops have cameras that can do eye tracking natively. [This article](http://theconversation.com/how-eye-tracking-gives-players-a-new-experience-in-video-games-54595) outlines the tech needed: > [@](#): > > An eye tracker is made of little more than a camera and a few LEDs to be attached to the bottom of a screen. The difference to a regular webcam is that they operate in the infra-red spectrum so that the variation in people’s eye and skin colour does not interfere in the tracking. However, IR cameras don’t work well when you’ve got irrelevant hotspots. For example, the Kinect system I have at home sometimes registers a sunlight-bathed wall behind me as Player 2. I can only imagine how the hot lights needed for TV, combined with the longer distance from the camera, would mess with the results. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2017, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-app-to-alert-the-viewer-to-teleprompters/793112/10 "2017-08-09T23:07:54Z")
His use case of course is not to build an eye tracker to install in a TV studio. It’s to build something that itself can somehow watch broadcast TV at home or watch a youtube and magically determine from that crappy compressed video whether the human on-screen was reading from a teleprompter. The wiki has some decent pix of modern ones: [Teleprompter - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleprompter) The key point being a typical display now shows just a handful of syllables per line. Anyone who can do anything close to speed reading need not move their eyes at all to read all the text off a teleprompter. So all you’re left with is how skillfully the reader appears to handle inflection, expression, etc. Not stuff subject to computer analysis any time soon. Nor would it be very reliable even if you used trained humans to watch. The signal of who’s a good orator and who’s not would overwhelm the noise of whether they were teleprompting or working from memory. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2017, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-app-to-alert-the-viewer-to-teleprompters/793112/11 "2017-08-09T23:17:24Z")
Can I ask why you want this? ---
**Author:** ![MikeG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikeg/32/4329_2.png) [@MikeG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeG)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2017, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-app-to-alert-the-viewer-to-teleprompters/793112/12 "2017-08-09T23:33:15Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Can I ask why you want this? Waaaaaahhhhhhhhpoliticianswaaahhhhhhhelstupidowaaaaahhhhhhdemswaaaaahhhhrepubswaaaaaaahhsnowflakewaaaaaaahhhhhhhaltrightwaaaaaahhhh ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-app-to-alert-the-viewer-to-teleprompters/793112/13 "2017-08-10T01:43:25Z")
> [@MikeG](#): > > Waaaaaahhhhhhhhpoliticianswaaahhhhhhhelstupidowaaaaahhhhhhdemswaaaaahhhhrepubswaaaaaaahhsnowflakewaaaaaaahhhhhhhaltrightwaaaaaahhhh **Moderator Note** This appears to be either a political jab or a jab at the OP, but whatever it is it isn’t appropriate for GQ. No warning issued, but stick to the OP. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![MikeG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikeg/32/4329_2.png) [@MikeG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeG)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-app-to-alert-the-viewer-to-teleprompters/793112/14 "2017-08-10T02:03:36Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > **Moderator Note** > > This appears to be either a political jab or a jab at the OP, but whatever it is it isn’t appropriate for GQ. No warning issued, but stick to the OP. > > Colibri > General Questions Moderator Sorry, I assumed the post was in a suitable forum.