A prototype laptop that will allow users to navigate on their screen by simply the movement of their eyes was unveiled this week.
Tobii Technology, a Swedish firm known for its eye-tracking technology coupled with Lenovo Corp. to incorporate the tracking into laptop screens for what they hope will be the next generation of computers. Just think, one day you can navigate Windows with the windows to your soul…(*Crickets*)
The CeBIT technology trade show in Hanover, Germany hosted the demonstration which showed how users could scroll through text and play games using the reflection of retinas and other glares and science-y stuff.
There will be a number of commands you can perform using this technology like the aforementioned scrolling as well as page zooming and cursor movement. How to differentiate between using those commands isn’t clear just yet.
It should be noted that the laptop won’t be strictly reliant on eye-control – it will be a complimentary tool users can pair with the traditional keyboard-mouse tandem. I suppose it will be up to how comfortable a user is in the eye-commands to determine how much it’s used.
If you’re like me and employ eyes with a form of ADD, then having eye-movement dictate what happens on your screen sounds like a nightmare. I just imagine a screen with 20 different things happening at once because I can’t get focused on one area of the screen. I’m sure it doesn’t quite work like that, but that’s what I picture.
And yes, it can track through eyeglasses. So, those with rapidly declining eyesight already cringing at the thought of gazing even harder at computer screens…just go ahead and get glasses now to avoid the rush.
It’s really amazing when you step back and look at the scope of technology now. 3D is all over the place, motion-sensor gaming continues to evolve, computers are beating us in Jeopardy and now we have Iron Man-like eye sensors ready to be used for who-knows-what. Advances like these won’t all change the way we live, but having them around could make it a whole lot more fun.
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Tags: eye tracking, Technology
