Eye-controlled Laptop Presented At CeBit

siliconbits writes "Microsoft is rumoured to be one of their partners; maybe they'll built it in the next Kinect. 'Computer manufacturer Lenovo has partnered with Swedish startup Tobii Technology to launch the world's first eye-controlled laptop, which will be on display as from today at CeBIT in Hannover.'"

Comments

Indeed

[solevita]

Maybe the next Slashdot summary will be built it in English.

Cool interface.

[Timmmm]

It seems the most innovative thing is not the actual eye-tracking, but coming up with an interface that is actually useful, and not just "the mouse follows your eye", which as the guy rightly says would be really annoying.

Does anyone know how the tech works? It looks like you can see two infra-red emitters in the sensor area...

Re:Cool interface.

[SilentStaid]

Two infra-red sources bounce invisible light off the user's retinas. The reflected light is picked up by two cameras and the data used to calculate exactly where the user is looking.

That's from a different, albeit shorter article. That being said, I can't confirm it from Tobii's actual website.

here's the link, just in case.
http://www.tobii.com/en/eye-tracking-integration/global/">and of course, Tobii themselves.

Re:Cool interface.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Given that eye tracking has been used for years(though usually in slightly bulkier rigs) for things like attention study, website layout optimization, etc. it certainly isn't the novelty.

You usually generate a "heat map" of where the user is focusing, then tweak your layout/visual cues so that the test users find that their eyes are "guided" naturally around your layout. Turning that into a UI that would be attractive to somebody with a functioning lower body, though, is an interesting challenge...

Hmmph

[return 42]

Silly idea (rolls eyes) dsf(^*7w35487z wait, what happened?

Can we get focus-follows-eyes?

[psm321]

I've wanted a "focus follows eyes" option for a long time. The place where I think I'm typing is usually what I'm looking at, which doesn't correspond to where my mouse is (for focus-follows-mouse), and occasionally (rarely) I'll forget to click the right place for click-to-focus

Startup? They have been around for 10 years!

[fsterman]

Tobii is THE leader and defacto industry standard in eye tracking, they have offices in 4 countries. Other equipment requires that they keep their head still, with a Tobii, after a single calibration and a participant can not only move their head around, they can get out of the chair, come back, and keep on going.

Of course their research equipment goes for >$30,000. I know an HCI person who just happened to take some tracking equipment home at his last day of a bankrupt .com startup... No one will ever miss it!