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What Will Apple Do With Swedish Eye-Tracking Technology?
andylim writes "An article on recombu.com explores the possibility that Apple is gearing up to launch eye-tracking technology soon. Citing a patent filed in 2008 that mentions 'gaze vectors' and a recent purchase of units from a Swedish eye-tracking company, the author suggests that the inclusion of eye-tracking tech in the company's forthcoming tablet would be Jobs's magnum opus. 'What better flourish to a career that began with the popularization of windows, icons, mouse and pointer than to usurp them all?'"
Too soon?
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I'm not Swedish. Am I immune to this technology?
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
Not sure if this technology would apply to it but I've always wanted a computer with main unit, say the size of a cell phone, wired to a set of LCD glasses (preferably transparent so you could see whats going on around you while using it). Then you could navigate with voice commands, gestures and eye movements.
Though with multi-touch coming these days you could have multiple mouse icons and use eye movement and mouse movement on the same computer or instead eliminate the mouse and never have to take your hands off the keyboard to navigate (yes some of us use computers for more than porn).
Just my $0.02
'What better flourish to a career that began with the popularisation of windows, icons, mouse and pointer than to usurp them all?'"
Eye tracking technology doesn't usurp ANY of that. If anything, eyetracking technology makes windows and icons more useful, since those are designed to hold your attention for the short span that you need them.
And don't think that this technology would ever replace the mouse. You need a mouse for gaming, amongst many things. One such annoying technology around today is rollover ads. Our eyes often make tiny glances at colours and items that grab our attention.
Point is, they aren't changing the existing system, merely adding onto it.
I don't really think that Apple will use eye tracking... yet. Why? Because there aren't enough existing products out there. The vast majority of Apple's products show up when there are 1 or 2 other early products out there that Apple can improve on. Eye-tracking isn't used in any major way yet and so I don't think Apple will use it quite yet.
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There are two main problems with eye tracking. First, your eyes are always moving. Second, they’re attracted to motion.
Eye tracking, done correctly, would have to avoid both of these pitfalls. It would be possible, but tricky. It would have to differentiate between the constant motion of your eyes and deliberate motions that you wanted to make, or at least not be adversely affected by all of their unconscious movements. It would also need to avoid causing movement or changes on the screen that would draw your attention away from what you intended to look at.
For instance, if a normal cursor was displayed at the detected position of your gaze, it would (A) obscure, (B) distract, and (C) float irritatingly away from your gaze if its positioning was even slightly miscalibrated.
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It always seemed to me that the greatest benefit of tracking the position / geometry of a user's eyes would be for determining their focal point. The user will look at your information directly if it's needed, but if it was always in focus they will be less fatigued by constantly changing focal points. In handheld devices this would allow you to glance at your phone by bringing into your field of view without having to take your focus off the road / sidewalk. Refining the technology enough that people could use computers at work without having to have corrective lenses on / in would do wonders.
I hate it when I look at a field and start typing only to find out that something else has focus. This happens to me in every GUI I've ever used and if a webcam with gaze vectoring can fix that I'd really like it.
I mean, what else would you do with Swedish Eye-Tracking technology? Track Swedish Eyes, obviously...
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They're going to build an ebook reader app for their rumored tablet to kill the kindle & dominate the market. as Ramanujan once said for a famous one line proof, "Behold."
~dijjnn
One of the big challenges in videoconferencing is the illusion that the subject, who is looking at your face on the screen, appears as if he or she isn't making eye contact with you, as the camera is not located in the middle of the screen. While this may seem minor at first glance (ha ha), it's actually a pretty important issue in videoconferencing, with significant demand for software that corrects it.
A "gaze vector" is exactly the kind of information software would need to "correct" the illusion, to make it seem like the subject does have eye contact. I bet Apple is going to incorporate eye contact correction tech for videoconferencing in its products.
Eye-eye, sir!
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Full disclosure: I am a vision researcher who has worked with most of the available eyetracking systems on the market.
I had not heard of the company, and a quick look at their product line tells me why not: their standalone systems are limited to 60hz/120hz depending on the model - this was good several years ago, but has been considerably eclipsed by other companies' designs (e.g. S-R Research's Eyelink hardware, which happily does 2000hz monocular tracking). It looks on par with ASL's Eye-trac gear, which has similar limitations.
I would bet that Apple just bought a few of their systems to use in internal testing - I sincerely doubt that anyone there is using such slow gear for major research.
An eye for an i.
There was a story some time ago about Apple patenting small, "hidden" in the screen cameras as a means of correcting eye contact issue that exists currently in videoconferences.
Which really strikes me as another example of why patent system is badly broken in the US. Even I toyed some time ago with an idea of using small sensor / optical arrangement that minimizes size of the "camera", visible obstruction, so it can be placed in front of the screen without being too irritating. Hiding it between the pixels of LCD screen, when you have good enough manufacturing, seems to be just...a straightforward progression.
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I have a lazy eye =(
I can imagine how the pointer moving ever so slightly away from where you are looking causes you to try to move your focus to where the cursor now is causing a cascading effect of chasing the cursor that is just out of focus and moving. It will eventually cause us all to have spastic eye movements constantly circling the page. That will be fun!
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
The iPhone has multi-gesture apps because Apple first came to the broad market with such a device. People will build software to what hardware manufacturers make popular, ont the other way around.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?