Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Tobii Releases Eye-Controlled Mouse For PCs

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-see-what-you-did-there dept.

Zothecula writes "Sweden's eye tracking and control innovator Tobii has announced the release of a stand-alone eye control device called PCEye. Like the laptop-based prototype system demonstrated at CeBIT last month, the device tracks eye movement and translates it into mouse cursor action onscreen. Positioned in front of a PC monitor and connected via USB, the company says that the technology is compatible with a wide range of software and has been primarily designed to improve computer interactivity for users with impaired motor skills, such as stroke victims." The estimated price range is around $7k, so yeah. Start saving your pennies for something cooler.

13 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. But... by boristdog · · Score: 3, Funny

    But what if I don't want to just click on pictures of breasts?

    1. Re:But... by Zeek40 · · Score: 2

      Then you're on the wrong internet.

    2. Re:But... by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Funny

      What if I want to look at and not have the stupid mouse pointer blocking those nipples I'm staring at?

      Well, you could always try making eye contact occasionally. ;-)

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    3. Re:But... by alienzed · · Score: 2

      what are you, female?

      --
      Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
  2. Re:Mouse vs Cursor by Sylak · · Score: 2

    But it's an HID (specifically a mouse) that is controlled by eyes.

  3. $7k?! by Lord+Lode · · Score: 2

    I wonder if someone is able to create something similar using an $20 webcam and some coding? :)

    1. Re:$7k?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      I wonder if someone is able to create something similar using an $20 webcam and some coding? :)

      It can be and I have done it. Its based on head movement but can be easily done with the eyes and a little bit coding revamped. Free VS 7grand. Seems fair to me.

      http://reallifecod.webs.com/

    2. Re:$7k?! by codeAlDente · · Score: 2

      Have you ever looked at a health care bill? These are for stroke victims, etc., so they'll try to get their R&D cost back by selling them to people who are rich and/or have good health insurance.

      --
      He once inserted random mutations into his code, just so he could have the experience of debugging.
  4. OpenGazer by allawalla · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wish they would release a new version, but this one is free and works decently http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/opengazer/

    1. Re:OpenGazer by machxor · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I've used Emgu CV (a .NET wrapper for OpenCV) to do similar stuff in the past. Might take more work to get what OpenGazer gives you but it is still an active project.

  5. What about the pointer? by aardwolf64 · · Score: 2

    Darn that new eye-controlled mouse! Everywhere I try to look on the page, there's a pointer in the way!

    1. Re:What about the pointer? by JustinOpinion · · Score: 2

      Indeed. There are a lot of problems with just having the pointer just follow a person's eyes. Obviously there are applications in terms of accessibility (which appears to be the target market), but for the general user this would be painfully frustrating to use: people very frequently look at one part of the screen while typing/manipulating in some other window. There's also no way that using your eyes would be as easy and accurate as using a mouse (your eyes intentionally jitter about).

      I'm disappointed that we haven't seen anything beyond a simple "directly control mouse pointer" implementation. There are so many more interesting things one could imagine. For instance a "focus follows eyes" like "focus follows mouse" would be interesting. (Not for a general user, mind you, but as an option for people who have a certain kind of workflow.) Something else I would love to see is a "smart snap-to". For instance if I'm looking at a given widget, and I move the mouse pointer from far away towards the widget I'm staring at, it could immediately "snap" onto that widget, so that I can easily click/interact with it. It would only work if calibrated correctly so that it isn't triggered during normal operations (e.g. I'm moving an object in a program, my eye focus is fairly close to the pointer, so it shouldn't snap annoyingly) and only exists as an 'accelerator' during big pointer movements. It could actually be implemented as a sort of region around my focus that has 'slower mouse acceleration' so that the pointer sorta gets trapped in that area (effectively creating a Fitt's Law "big target" where I'm looking), probably coupled with some context-awareness (e.g. only active when I'm looking at UI chrome, not movable elements within a program or the canvas of a drawing app...)

      The devil is in the details, but I think there's a way to implement it where it would be helpful in many cases (the pointer magically moving where you wanted it to) without screwing up other cases (when you want to delicately move the mouse). I'm sure there are lots of other neat ways that eye-tracking and mouse movements could be ingeniously combined (when my eyes are searching around frantically, make the mouse pointer glow so that I can find it?)... a simple control of the mouse pointer doesn't sound great.

      (One problem with the things I'm proposing is that they are so subtle and such small gains in productivity that they certainly wouldn't justify a cost much beyond what a webcam costs...)

  6. Looking ahead? by grahamlord86 · · Score: 2

    Not convinced about the practical use for this, your eyes are generally working one step ahead of your hands.

    Let's say I'm playing Bejewled in timed mode, where you need to make moves as fast as possible- my eyes are already looking for the next move as my hand makes the move I've just found.

    Same goes for browsing the internet or many other tasks, where my eyes are looking at something else while my hands move the cursor to a link or, say, Next Page button...

    Ask any guitar/bass player, they're not looking at the note they're playing, they're looking at the next note their hand is going to move to.

    Having the cursor track the eyes would significantly slow down a power user I think?