Gaze Gaming Tech Promises Faster Eye-Controlled Interaction

NewScientist is reporting that further research is progressing on new types of user input devices. Specifically, "gaze gaming," a technology that promises faster interaction using only your eyes. Currently technology for sight-based interaction is far too slow for practical applications in things like gaming. "Eye-gaze systems bounce infrared light from LEDs at the bottom of a computer monitor and track a person's eye movements using stereo infrared cameras. This setup can calculate where on a screen the user is looking with an accuracy of about 5 mm."

Comments

Imagine turning this technology into a mouse

[Smeagel]

While your finger sits on a touch sensor (unmoving, relaxing) your eyes act as the mouse curser. You blink to click. Perfect interaction.

Re:Imagine turning this technology into a mouse

[speroni]

Blinking could be an issue, you're going to do that involuntarily. Maybe with an extra long blink, or specifically one eye for a click (Then you could get left and right clicks) you don't generally close one eye involuntarily.

I was thinking a contact lens with an inlaid tracker could improve the accuracy.

I already have suspicions that sitting in my cubical in front of my good old CRTs and other equipment is already unhealthy enough, wouldn't want to add more EMR in my face on top of that. Although I know there's nothing inherently unhealthy with IR EMR...

Re:Imagine turning this technology into a mouse

[fractoid]

I can't help thinking that using gaze tracking as a primary cursor is (with the exception of physically disabled users who *can't* use a traditional pointing device) somewhat missing the main potential.

Gaze tracking seems to me to be perfect for a secondary 'information' cursor. Wonder what the date is? Look at the clock on your taskbar and the calendar will pop up. Curious what guild that undead priest over there is in? Simply looking will give you some transparent overlay text detailing guild, current health/mana, and what spell he's casting. Cast your eyes to a person's name on your IM list and it'll tell you when they were last at their computer and what their status message is.

Another interesting thing I remember reading about was using eye tracking for security. The whole screen is a ramble of random characters, except the precise area of interest being focussed on, which is unscrambled. The viewer's brain assembles what they see into an unscrambled screen, and any onlooker just sees junk.

Retinal image

[FrankSchwab]

I always wondered if you could do more precise gaze detection by looking at a person's retina. Could you detect where they were looking on the screen precisely enough to eliminate the need for a mouse cursor (say, within one character space)? How large is the area of sharpest vision? /frank

Re:Retinal image

[MuValas]

The problem is what a person is cognitively focused on isn't necessarily what they are visually focused on. We've worked on vision-tracking systems for a long time, and this basic fact stymies most uses of the technology. We have had numerous devices that bounce various types of light off the retina for tracking, and people that use it complain that sometimes what they are focused on, and what their retina is apparently focused on, is different.

I hope this is not only for games

[Simon (S2)]

It would be really useful to be able to move the cursor only by looking at the point on the sceen I want it to be. That could save my wrist from carpal tunnel syndrome and it could also incement my productivity by making the pointer go quicker to where I want it to be. I hope it will have pixel accuracy, but even if it does not, I am sure, time a few years, it could become the perfect input device.

Re:Imagine RSI in your frickin' *eyes*

[ParaShoot]

I doubt RSEye (to coin a term) would be a problem, given that your eyes are constantly in use in everyday life, and very much used to moving small distances repeatedly. Chances are that your eyes are following your mouse cursor anyway, so the net increase in eye movement is zero, with the added bonus of avoiding repetitive mouse clicks.

Eyes are designed for frequent, small movements. Fingers aren't.

What about four eyes

[icebike]

Some of us need glasses just to see up to the screen. How will this work with an additional semi-reflective layer interspersed?

Selective Rendering

[jannone]

For single-player games, this device could possibly enable some sort of selective rendering technique, where the objects sitting at the focal point are rendered in much more detail than the periphery.

Re:Selective Rendering

[pherthyl]

Yes, this has been done and works quite well (the user doesn't notice any difference). The problem is in the reaction time that is necessary. The last study I read found that the high detail rendering must be performed within 5ms of a fixation to make the experience seamless to the user. That's a problem for most applications, as they won't be able to react that quickly.

As long as no lady's chests in image

[Maxo-Texas]

I remember the pepsi commercials back in the late 70's/early 80's.
They tracked where guys were looking and it was not at the product.
In fact, they frequently didn't remember the product.
Very popular commercial of a girl exiting the water in a little suit holding a can of pepsi.

Re:Ok, I only see one issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Several games already allow you to move your cursor without moving the direction the player is facing, for example to give orders. It's as simple as disabling eye input while holding ALT or some other key.

This combined with perhaps a keyboard which features mouse buttons could be quite nice to work with.