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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?
Sent from your iPad.
'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.
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.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
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...
Bow-ties are cool.
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.
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.