Slashdot Mirror
Eye-Based Videogame Control
dsmith3689 writes "Researchers at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario have explored the use of an eye tracker as a control device for a handful of commercial video games. To do this, they integrated a Tobii 1750 desktop eye tracker with Quake 2, Neverwinter Nights, and a flash adaptation of Missile Command called Lunar Command. A study was performed that indicates the use of direct feedback from eye movements can drastically increase the feeling of immersion (pdf) in the virtual world."
It hurts.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
With this technology you could finally have a window manager that implements "focus follows mind".
Ya know what really pisses me off. You get a link to a web site. You go there and read all this interesting product information. You look at all the pretty pictures and decide you want to buy. Then you discover there's no "Buy Now" button. There's no shopping cart. There's just a Contact tab with a form for you to submit your details. Like you've got to beg to buy their product. Dickheads.
How we know is more important than what we know.
My eyes have enough blood flowing through them that they sometimes jerk in harmony with each pulse. I can see how it'd be "bloody" cool to be able to control the camera angle by eyesight, but I'm pretty certain it'd be a jerky ride for people like me.
--I gots 99 problems but a new machine ain't one!
AMD! Asus! Whoot! 6 years!
I have a lazy eye, you insensitive clods!
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
They have had technology like this for a while, although not as a method of input or control. They use special "eye-tracking" machines for hazard perception experiments with automobiles. I think using eye-tracking as an input device would be something that would be very hard to get used to. The human eye is a pretty amazing piece of hardware and I think a "machine" would have a hard time utilising it. Additionally you'd also have to have a special filter for crack addicts that have developed twitches. They could also implement shortcuts where if you roll your eyes it opens Firefox and navigates to Slashdot =P
Cross your eyes to double click.
... or a new interface to software/games to compensate for the apparent lack of accuracy and speed (note the Quake 2 demo video), at least in FPS-style games.
:)
Could absolutely rock if tweaked minutely for flight and other simulation games, though.
At least in the industrial fan market, the requirement to request a quote is so that larger companies who make competing products can't spider your site and undercut all your prices due to their larger materials buying power. It's actually a rawther common practice in business-to-business markets.
...for people that can't move. I helped someone fix their computer who had the eye tracking thing for someone that was paralyzed.
Sig: I stole this sig.
At least for most videogame applications
That's not being an insensitive clod...That is giving you an advantage and a specific role in any fps games - you'll be the uber camping whore!
I ate your fish.
From the Quake 2 demo, it's really not giving any advantages because your moves with the gun and the body. In Armed Assaunt (or Operation Flashpoint for that matter) where environment awareness is much more important (and *gasps* you head is not attached to the gun!), being able to look around means you have a much greater field of view and able to spot more enemies, check on your team mates to stay in formation, and maybe avoiding the helicopter collisions that we so often have.
Actually, you bring up a very good point. Does this device take things like lazy eye into account? Does it only track the movements of one eye or both? This would be a great tool for those who don't have appropriate use of hands or have some kind of physical damage that would make handling a mouse or trackball difficult or impossible. But could this thing compensate for lazy eye or those who only have one useful eye?
...would this technology have on a game like, say, Dead or Alive: Xtreme Volleyball?
>_>
Hero of Allacrost, a FOSS RPG for *NIX/*BSD/OS X/Win
He totally missed the target the first time he fired... come on really? How will this help my counter-strike? If this cannot make me a better counter-strike player I could care less... geesh....
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
This might work pretty well for games like Starcraft or Warcaft, any RTS or TBS for that matter. I can see this working especially well with games where you have to have pinpoint accuracy. For example C&C, if you don't click exactly on the pixels required to highlight that unit, you can screw yourself up.
This could also push forward a new generation of Arcade shooters. Growing up by the ocean there were always Arcades on the boardwalks, so I learned to play all sorts of games. My favorites are the Time Crisis series, Police Trainer, etc. This technology could have unprecedented accuracy when compared to those cruddy plastic pistols and could definitely set a fire under the asses of the arcade gaming industry. Let's just hope they don't start charging $5 a play because the parts are overexpensive.
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
The one thing my Windowmaker needs is something to autofocus the window I'm currently looking at. I can't remember how many times I've drifted in thought and looked at another terminal, started typing, only to find I'm still typing in the other one :-)
Robotech did it first. One of the pilots created an eye tracking aiming system for the battle simulator/video game to great effect.
That group of bovine standing over there appears quite portentous. That's right it's an ominous cow herd.