2012-02-01

Tobii Eye Controlled User Interfaces

Video: Navigate a computer … with your eyeballs | SmartPlanet



The mouse. What once seemed like a revolutionary way of navigating a computer is now outdated. Trackpads, touchscreen phones and tablets respond to a flick of our fingertips, and virtual assistants take our verbal commands.

But it looks like we’re about to take computer responsiveness to a whole new level.

Tobii is new eyeball tracking software that can follow your eye movements to toggle between windows, scroll as you’re reading, zoom in while looking at maps and more. All you have to do is a quick calbration at the beginning as the computer tracks your eyes while you watch a dot moving on the screen.

Eye tracking and eye control for research, communication and integration

Eye tracking by Tobii Technology has revolutionized research in many fields and enabled communication for thousands of people with special needs. Tobii offers world-leading eye tracking and eye control for research, communication and industrial integration.



Tobii is built into the laptop, which is made by Lenovo, and is located below the screen. It's actually pretty simple (well, sort of). It works by shooting infrared lights into your eyes to cause red-eye (sounds dangerous, I know, but they assure me it's perfectly safe). By doing this, Tobii is able to create a 3D model of your eyeball and determine where your eye is relative to space. It then tracks the glint off of your eyeball to determine where your foveal vision, or sharp central vision, is, and, consequently, where you're looking.

Tobii unveils the world’s first eye-controlled laptop | Tobii.com

Envision eye control in PC’s

For users, eye control is thrilling and makes the computer interaction more effective. It is as if the computer understands you; just glance at an icon or gadget and more information will be presented; You can zoom pictures or maps and automatically center on the area you are looking at; The computer can auto-dim and brighten the screen when it recognizes your eyes to increase battery time. Eye control can also speed things up by enabling new and intuitive ways to switch between open windows, and browse your emails and documents.