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New Display Keeps an Eye On the Viewer

Posted by Soulskill on from the apparently-it-watches-the-watchers dept.

Al writes "Researchers at Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems (IPMS) have developed an OLED display that doubles as a camera. The idea is to use it in lightweight heads-up displays that track users' eye movements, affording some form of gaze-control. The researchers will demonstrate a prototype at the Society for Information Display conference in San Antonio this week. The current version has a simple monochromatic display: it is 1.25 centimeters on each side, with a resolution of 320 by 240 pixels. The team at Fraunhofer IPMS has also partnered with Novaled, an OLED company that manufactures high-quality white diodes, and plans to make color prototypes using the technology."

7 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. reversal by underqualified · · Score: 4, Funny

    In Soviet Russia, screen watches you!

    1. Re:reversal by inviolet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In Soviet Russia, screen watches you!

      You laugh, but this invention is important. Video-phones cannot catch on without it, because humans require eye contact in order to trust each other. You can't have eye contact over a video-phone unless your camera is also your monitor.

      --
      FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
  2. Eye tracking glasses by mrjb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    1.25 centimeters- that's half an inch. Perhaps a bit too small yet for use in a monitor- but probably reasonably easy to scale up to the size of a pair of glasses. Incorporating a camera display on the inside of a pair of glasses would make eye tracking much simpler, and reduce any privacy concerns- Even if someone would be watching along with the video stream being captured by the glasses, all there would be to see would be eye movements.

    --
    Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
  3. Typo in summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    usersl

    The "l" is on the wrong side.

    -- BOFH

  4. Apple might have a patent for this... by distantbody · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...They submitted a patent application for something like this in January 2006 see here. Personally I would prefer to use a discreet webcam.

  5. Prototype, eh? by iamdrscience · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The camera in the researchers' current prototype is still fairly rudimentary. It has a resolution of only 12 pixels, which means that it can't yet track a user's eye movements.

    In other news, I have made a prototype flying car in my garage. It doesn't fly yet, but I have put some stylish looking fins on it.

    1. Re:Prototype, eh? by moon3 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Fraunhofer guys invented MP3 compression, this German think tank do have results..

      Also this is proof of concept. It doesn't really matter whether the resolution is 12 or 1024.