Computer Control With Your Eyeballs is Possible for $30

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Controlling the user interface with brain wave recognition has not worked out so far, but we are seeing much more traction in the field of eye tracking.

In the near future you could be interfacing with certain applications simply with your eyes. Students at the Imperial College London have shown that such a device could be built for less than $30.

The idea is not as revolutionary as you may think and uses commonly available hardware. The students used game console cameras capable of tracking 3D objects, such as Microsoft's Kinect. However, instead of tracking an entire body, two cameras were placed on a head-mounted construct "outside of the user's field of vision", and were recalibrated to track pupils. According to the students working on the project, the concept worked well, even if the technology was just demonstrated with a simple Pelota-like game.

A commercial product would need "appropriate" funding and about three more years of development, the researchers said.

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Wolfgang Gruener
12 Comments Comment from the forums
  • alexthager
    This would be pretty cool for FPS games.
    Reply
  • joytech22
    alexthagerThis would be pretty cool for FPS games.
    True, but then again the cursor while playing a game is always at the center of the screen, so when looking at anything on the screen the cursor will frantically attempt to move to that part of the screen hundreds of times a second.

    Basically, you would be spinning around uncontrollably in-game.
    I had this issue when I tried to use other motion technology before, the game has to be designed to use it.
    Reply
  • deicided
    Porn. nuff said. You look down the camera follows so you could control what you are looking at, at any given time during said "Film"
    Reply
  • bustapr
    alexthagerThis would be pretty cool for FPS games.that would be the ultimate aimbot. pretty hard to miss headshots when all you have to do is look at them and trigger.
    Reply
  • bawchicawawa
    Man, his voice is soothing.
    Reply
  • freggo
    Advertisers would love it to be able to test which ads you read on a page (paper or web).
    We actually experimented with that back in the late 70s !
    Reply
  • jimmyjohnz
    joytech22True, but then again the cursor while playing a game is always at the center of the screen, so when looking at anything on the screen the cursor will frantically attempt to move to that part of the screen hundreds of times a second.Basically, you would be spinning around uncontrollably in-game.I had this issue when I tried to use other motion technology before, the game has to be designed to use it.
    Think of the Wii. Call of Duty on the Wii involved having free aim of your gun all over the screen and only moving when you reach certain deadzones. This was clunky in itself but I was still able to become pretty accurate after playing for awhile. Now think of PC gaming where your eyes have control of where your gun is pointed on the screen, and your mouse allows you to move where your camera is looking. This actually sounds awesome to me, much better than the virtual reality stuff everybody else is talking about.
    Reply
  • I m the guy you see on the video to tested this wonderful device. why do I have crossed eye problem now?
    Reply
  • dextermat
    Remember them :

    http://www.mindflux.com.au/products/iis/vfx1.html

    way too expensive and "useless" lol
    Reply
  • Eye tech has been around for decades, saw my first demo at CES 1994 (or 1995...been a while...lol) when Canon showed off their camcorders with this tech. Tracked my eye to set focus points while recording. SLR cameras have had this tech also for focusing as well for a long time. I believe Dr. Hawkings is now using such a system as well.
    Reply