Teenager Builds $300 Open Source Eye-Tracking System

fergus07 writes "Developed by a 17-year-old electronics and programming whiz from Honduras, the Eyeboard system is a low-tech eyeball-tracking device that allows users with motor disabilities to enter text into a computer using eye gestures instead of a physical interface. This kind of system is not unique — there's plenty of eye tracking interfaces out there — but Luis Cruz has figured out a way to build the full system into a set of glasses for less than US$300, putting easier communication within reach of users in developing countries. He's also releasing the software as open source to speed up development."

Comments

Eyewriter?

[Osgeld]

http://www.instructables.com/id/The-EyeWriter/

Re:Eyewriter?

[SuricouRaven]

My council-run workplace proxy blocks instructables.com - the site is classified as a 'security threat.'

Re:Eyewriter?

[zeroeth]

The Eye Writer guys were at the Open Hardware Summit, their work allowed the graffiti artist Tempt to continue to create after he lost use of his arms and legs to Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Their methods used webcams for eye tracking, while the articles method uses electrical signals from eye muscles http://www.ees.intelsath.com/EES-EOG.pdf

The more the merrier!

I would have had the first post...

[godrik]

... if I did not had to use an eye-tracking device!

Re:I would have had the first post...

[nomel]

This kid made an an eye gesture device, not true eye tracking. You can't have a cursor follow your eye.

"users with motor disabilities to enter text into a computer using eye gestures instead of a physical interface."

If you look, you'll see it's only two wires attached near the eye which makes it somewhat obvious. Cool, but a misleading title.

In other news, a news reporter misunderstands technology!

Wont someone think of

[AHuxley]

The US shareholders, their trust kids and this very real threat to generational wealth and long term patents.
They invested wisely in medical tech and have the US market cornered with helpful devices starting at a few thousand $.
If developing countries want the tech, let them contact USAID and get it the correct way.
Overtime this tech will be made into low cost products and shipped back into the US - like pharmacy products are now from Canada and Mexico.

Re:Wont someone think of

[Fluffeh]

This is either amazingly asinine or a brilliant troll because I can't work out which.

If you (America) wants to keep the tech in-house, stop selling the manufacture contract to the lowest bidder, i.e. another country. Pony up with the money to build it in the US. Yes, the manufacturing costs will be much higher, but if you have a monopoly on the market for that particular product, then price isn't that much of an issue.

All your debt, all your trade deficit. It's dead simple to fix. You could fix it tomorrow. Stop buying imported goods. You want to help your country, buy the products that you make domestically. Will you (the people) pay a lot more? Yes. Will your selection be smaller? Yes, greatly. Will it be better for your country? Sure it will. With some luck you might even then be able to start selling some of your goods overseas to help pay back that stupidly high debt.

Re:Wont someone think of

[PopeRatzo]

You want to help your country, buy the products that you make domestically

But then how will we buy all the cheap shit from Wal-Mart that ends up in landfill?

Nobody thinks of the Walton family, I guess and the effect this could have on them.

And if Wal-Mart closes, then all those people who closed their small stores will have to go back to work in their own shops, instead of the nice jobs they have now as Wal-Mart greeters.

Re:Wont someone think of

[fahrbot-bot]

You want to help your country, buy the products that you make domestically.

What products? We're too busy drinking Fair-Trade Guatemalan Shade-Grown coffee with from Starbucks and talking on our Chinese-made iPhones while driving Fords build in Mexico... Who has time to make things - geesh. Now excuse me while I fire up the Sony and watch Survivor - the South Pacific looks really nice.

Re:Wont someone think of

[maztuhblastah]

Tell me, Fluffeh, where did you manage to purchase your computer?

I'd love to have a laptop that wasn't produced primarily with Chinese components, so I'm dying to find out where you got yours!

Re:Wont someone think of

[AHuxley]

See it more as a "own a brand in the USA", "make in China", protect in the US with a "Medical Devices" sticker model.
Very low manufacturing cost, a cozy cartel market and "Medical Devices" laws keep it all safe.
Everybody wins.
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/stories/s785987.htm shows what this cost for medical devices can do:
"Dr Shetty insists heart care does not have to be as expensive as the World Health Care Organisation and international medical companies make it."
"If you make an eco-machine which gives the image of the liver, then that machine say costs 10,000 dollars but the same machine, you say it images the heart, it will be sold for 50,000 dollars. Anything to do with the heart, everyone wants a premium. "
So yes good luck with this, but its interesting to see how and why medical tech is protected.

Re:Wont someone think of

[Fluffeh]

Hey Maztuhblastah, yes, my PCs are made in the same place that your PCs are made. That's not how it has always been though has it - which is my point. The first microprocessors (Intel 4004) were built by Intel, which is an American company based in Santa Clara. The first microcontroller/microcomputer was built by the Texas Instruments, which was the TMS 1000. That company is in Texas.

My point is that it isn't enough just to have a great R&D department in America. If you really want to keep profits, you need to have that great R&D and then build it at home. Will that mean that a US built computer (assuming all the manufacturing plants were there) would cost buckets more than a computer built with the same specs in China? Absolutely.

The problem is that in trying to maintain profits companies look at (for the most part) fairly short term horizons. Will they be able to make more money by having a product built overseas where workers are payed a handful of beans per week? What isn't factored into the equation is whether that overseas manufacture will cause the plant down the road to close down due to lack of demand. Companies are insular in that they don't look for the best outcome of their community, their state or their country. That's where the government should be stepping in to either increase taxes on products coming in from overseas, or offering incentives to keep that industry on their own soil. Now, it can get stupid (see American sugar cane growers for a perfect example of this) but if the American people refused to buy sugar made from cane grown overseas, then the cane farmers would be quite happily able to maintain their own industry at home.

While the choice to buy local can be difficult, do you think that GM or Ford would be in such a pickle if the American public were thinking of their country first and refused to buy Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi and all those Hyundais?

I live in Australia and while I understand that I cannot buy EVERYTHING I need as an Australian made product, I make sure to buy everything I can. That often means I pay a premium. We don't grow much rice in Australia these days, which is a bit of a shame. I also make a point to write to supermarket chains to point out a lack of choice. Recently I went to my local supermarket (one of the two large supermarket chains in Australia) and found that I wasn't able to buy beans that were made in Australia. There were even a number of bean tins that were branded by the supermarket - but made in Italy. If enough people made the choice to speak what they wanted - and they spoke with more than "I want the cheapest!" then we would have a much better debt position. People like Dick Smith do wonders to point these sort of things out in the media - and I really wish that more people listened and did something rather than just nodding and forgetting five minutes later. For example, he has a product that competes with Redheads matches. It's called Dickheads. The back of the box reads: We would have to be complete dickheads to let most of our famous Australian brands be taken over by foreign companies. Brands such as Vegemite, Aeroplane Jelly, Arnott's, Speedo and Redhead Matches are in overseas hands. This means the profit and wealth created goes overseas and robs our children and grandchildren of a future. A protest from Dick Smith Foods. As Australian as you can get..

You make the bed you will sleep in later. I am trying to make the best bed I can, and try to encourage others to do so too. That's all I can do.

Re:Wont someone think of

[Fluffeh]

This isn't about debt (more on that later though), it's about trade deficit.

The U.S. has held a trade deficit starting late in the 1960s. Its trade deficit has been increasing at a large rate since 1997 (See chart) and increased by 49.8 billion dollars between 2005 and 2006, setting a record high of 817.3 billion dollars, up from 767.5 billion dollars the previous year. The US last had a trade surplus in 1975. Every year there has been a major reduction in economic growth, it is followed by a reduction in the US trade deficit.

Using the last few years, the US is literally giving other countries around five hundred billion dollars each year more than it is taking from them. That sort of economy simply cannot in any way, shape or form continue forever. It will eventually bottom out.

Now, moving on to who does own US debt.

As of January 2011, foreigners owned $4.45 trillion of U.S. debt, or approximately 47% of the debt held by the public of $9.49 trillion and 32% of the total debt of $14.1 trillion. The largest holders were the central banks of China, Japan, the United Kingdom and Brazil. The share held by foreign governments has grown over time, rising from 13% of the public debt in 1988 to 25% in 2007.

Maybe that's not "most", but that's certainly some scary numbers. Sourced from United States Public Debt.

Re:Wont someone think of

[sd4f]

Dick smith is a hypocrite, all his electronics stores revolved around importing the cheapest crap from overseas, so now for him to say buy australian is a huge backflip. Back when that was happening with dick smith, australia was still manufacturing lots of stuff, now we're just importing everything, whilst exporting the raw materials.

Re:Wont someone think of

[NeutronCowboy]

Using the last few years, the US is literally giving other countries around five hundred billion dollars each year more than it is taking from them.

And in return, the US is getting goods worth around $500 billion more than other countries. That's how trade works. If you want to export more than you take in, you end up with less goods in your market than elsewhere.

There's always two things I find amusing in these discussions:
* the idea that Americans are more deserving of running the world than others, and that if they can't run it, they'll take the entire construct down
* the idea that the US trading with Mexico and Canada is somehow different than Texas trading with California, or Sacramento trading with Santa Clara.

Furthermore, with the amount of money those foreign governments hold, it's the US that owns them, not the other way around. The same way that if I owe a bank 100 grand, the bank owns me, but if I owe the bank 50 billion, I own the bank.

Re:Wont someone think of

[Fluffeh]

If you want to export more than you take in, you end up with less goods in your market than elsewhere.

Not at all. Manufacture more than you consume. Look at Germany for example. It exports a bit more than the US and imports buckets of goods - you can't say that a German has less access to goods than someone in America. Yet the German economy exports more than it imports. The german people had a trade surplus of around 150 billion euros (that's around 200 billion US).

Furthermore, with the amount of money those foreign governments hold, it's the US that owns them, not the other way around. The same way that if I owe a bank 100 grand, the bank owns me, but if I owe the bank 50 billion, I own the bank.

That's a total fallacy. Take Greece for example, it's loaded to the eyeballs with debt, they are being forced to accept massive austerity measures to continue getting assistance. If you are really saying say that Greece owns the EU then I think (hope) you might start to see why that statement is a joke.

Re:Wont someone think of

[0100010001010011]

While the choice to buy local can be difficult, do you think that GM or Ford would be in such a pickle if the American public were thinking of their country first and refused to buy Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi and all those Hyundais?

I think you should read up on where the Toyotas (AL, KY, WV, TX, IN, MS*), Hondas (AL, OH), , Mitsubishis (IL) and Hyundais (AL) are made. Along with Benz (AL), BMW (SC), VW (TN*), and Subaru (IN).

* Currently being built.

Re:Wont someone think of

[vipw]

If Greece didn't "own" the EU, then it wouldn't get hardly any assistance. It's not humanitarian assistance that the EU is providing; they're attempting to limit damage to their own shared economy.

Re:Wont someone think of

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought thats what Capitalism was all about.

Capitalism is the law in the U.S.
If you aren't a capitalist to the point that it gets retarded you are either a communist or terrorist depending on how old you are. Either way it would be anti-American to buy locally produced goods.

Re:Wont someone think of

[tehcyder]

This is either amazingly asinine or a brilliant troll because I can't work out which.

I think you're the asinine one if you can't see it's a joke.

If he'd written "won't someone think of the poor proprietary software vendors being put out of business by open sores" maybe you'd have got it.

Re:Wont someone think of

[Anonymous Coward]

yep.

Also I would call him more of a money-grubbing cunt.

-NZ

Re:Wont someone think of

[dotancohen]

For example, he has a product that competes with Redheads matches. It's called Dickheads. The back of the box reads: We would have to be complete dickheads to let most of our famous Australian brands be taken over by foreign companies. Brands such as Vegemite, Aeroplane Jelly, Arnott's, Speedo and Redhead Matches are in overseas hands. This means the profit and wealth created goes overseas and robs our children and grandchildren of a future. A protest from Dick Smith Foods.

And just look at what the Dick's website says:

Dick Smith Foods - Guaranteed not grown downwind from a nuclear power station

Not to mention that the Dickhead matches were _packaged_ in Australia from Chinese wood and sulfur, I think that you might stop using them as an example. Other than an example of shame and hypocrisy, that is.

Re:Wont someone think of

[NeutronCowboy]

Look at Germany for example.

Good idea. I happen to have lived there, have friends and family there and still read the news regularly about it.

It exports a bit more than the US and imports buckets of goods - you can't say that a German has less access to goods than someone in America.

Until you actually go abroad, you have no idea how rich the US is, and how flooded it is with goods. Walking through Target or any strip mall is a surreal exercise after going shopping in any European country. The amount of money slushing around in the US is astounding, and is better spent (i.e., can buy cheaper goods of the same quality) on products being imported. That's where the trade imbalance is coming from.

Not to mention that that trade surplus is not what's keeping them afloat - it's a banking system and a mentality that frowns on risk and high debt. yes, they have their issues, but the scale is entirely different from that found in any other European country.

So when can we ...

[fsckmnky]

aim and fire weapons with it ?

A huge boon to HCI.

[RubberChainsaw]

Currently this tech can only measure horizontal eye movements, which makes it limited for replacing a mouse. However, if they can approach the speed and accuracy of even a laptop's touchpad, then it may usher in a new era of interaction with a computer. We wont even have to touch our tablets to interact with them.

Considering that the commercial eye-tracking devices my quick search found were all several thousands of dollars, this could be a huge step forward. I'm mightily impressed!

Re:A huge boon to HCI.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrooculography

Doing the vertical motion is a lot harder than the horizontal one. I have worked on/with such a commercial system before and it is very unstable due to impedance issues among many others....

Re:A huge boon to HCI.

[tibit]

EOG can be done right, if you know what you're doing. The way he is doing it -- it barely works. He cut all the corners that there were to be cut. The quoted cost ($300 USD) is pretty silly for what he has done.

For noise mitigation and ease of use, you need a system that is physically small (forget any long wires) and uses integrated, reusable electrodes. It needs to be no harder to put on than eyeglasses. This seems like an obvious requirement. Who has time to play with electrodes?

This means the following (BTDT):
1. The electrodes are machined as rods with rounded ends out of titanium (lightweight!) or stainless steel. The inside can be drilled out to further reduce weight.
2. The electrodes are mounted on a PC board that straddles the nose bridge. They are on the inside corners the eye, aiding in keeping the system compact.
3. The PC board extends above the nose bridge and has slots for a flat stretchable "headband" that pushes it against your lower forehead. You may need an adapter piece (a plastic shim) to keep it at the right angle, this fitting is done once per person -- until one changes the shape of one's skull, that is.
4. The PC board holds the differential preamp and a low power CPU that does A/D conversion and transmission over IR. The battery (two AAAs) can be on the other side of the head, on the strap.

Ideally, you'd fit a two-cell charger on board (it's one more chip), with provision for charging the two AAA NiMH cells on the strap via, say, USB. Then you don't have to worry about having to mess with replacing batteries, and the computer is the power supply for charging -- it's there already, might as well use the standby power supply for something :)

If you have access to a lathe and scrap metal, you can keep the cost of the entire thing under $100 in materials, even in quantity one, even with a custom PC board.

Since you are, presumably, in front of your computer, using IR is the simplest, lowest cost means of one way communication. On a Mac you have built-in IR receiver so you need no extra hardware on the receiving end.

His is a nifty project, but done with little attention to detail.

How many patents does it infringe?

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll never sell for $300 or anything cheaper than the established players because they're sure to have patents that this guy is infringing on and, well, you know that particular story goes...

wat

[Pence128]

Mix equal quantities of cheap and nasty webcam, super-close-up lens and cheap sunglasses with the lenses popped out. Add "track the black circle" to taste. Serves 1. $10-$20.

Re:wat

[bugs2squash]

cheaper yet, stick a toothpick in each eye and simply use the keyboard.

Re:I built one in 1982

[hey!]

Around the same time you built yours I had a student job at MIT where I worked in a lab that did research on visual perception stuff for the Air Force and NASA. We had eye tracking systems we'd built that were hooked up to a PDP-11 running RSX-11 (an interesting story in itself, but I digress). One of the things that surprised me was how simple eye tracking was in principle -- at least at the input end. Most of the work is interfacing, which today is a lot easier because of cheap USB interfaces and such.

I'm not at all surprised a maker can put together an eye tracking system for under $300. $300 is quite generous for the task.

What's impressive here isn't the engineering; it's that this kid envisioned doing something, researched how to do it, developed a design and built a prototype. No single step of this is particularly hard for a teenager with access to a library and the Internet. Nor is even dreaming up something like this all that unusual. What's unusual is acting on that impulse, and following it through to a prototype.

Microsoft patent violation

[sgt scrub]

This is a clear violation of the following Microsoft patents.

Patent No. 6,791,536 Simulating mouse inputs using non mouse device.

Patent No. 6,897,893 Simulating mouse inputs using non mouse device.

Software

[bWareiWare.co.uk]

Can't this be done in software:
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/opengazer/