Can eye-tracking replace the mouse?

 

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By Stuart Turton in Hannover

Posted on 5 Mar 2008 at 14:48

Eye-tracking technology from Tobii can control Windows XP, play games and open doors, and the company believes that one day, it will also replace the mouse.

Tobii's eye-tracker works by bouncing infrared light off the retina and cornea of the eyes, allowing it to get a spatial position for each one.

Once calibrated we were able turn to the side, step backwards or even adjust our height and the sensors continued to track our eye movements and the cursor on-screen accordingly. It is a surprisingly smooth process and without any visible delay between moving the eyes and the cursor catching up.

Applications

The technology was originally developed for the handicapped, allowing them to type messages, steer wheelchairs, even open doors and turn on televisions through an infrared controller.

However, the company is now thinking of wider applications and its booth at CeBIT contains a number of possibilities, with one panel showing it being used to control the House of the Dead game, delighting teenagers who swiftly realised that they need only stare at the rampaging zombies to target them, and blink to shoot.

Another application subjected us to a Gucci advert, then tracked our gaze across the image, recording where we lingered the longest before displaying the data as a heat-map. A service which is being used extensively by advertisers and publishers to work out the best designs for page layouts, according to the company.

Windows XP

However, it was the eye tracker being used to control Windows XP that really caught our attention. A half second blink to single click and a longer blink to double click makes it easy to interact, while documents start scrolling the moment our gaze reaches the last line on the page. It all works exceptionally well, but with backing Tobii says the integration could go even further.

"Imagine those annoying pop-up balloons," says says Tobii's executive vice president John Elvesjo. "Imagine they went away the second you read them, or emails which know they've been read because your eyes were on them for thirty seconds."

The company also has designs on the automotive field, envisaging a car that knows when you're falling asleep because your eyes are closed, or knows where you're looking and where you're supposed to be looking because you're changing lanes. It is an interesting technology, and one which may yet become as familiar as the mouse.

Click here for full coverage of CeBIT 2008.