Gaze Gaming Tech Promises Faster Eye-Controlled Interaction 141
NewScientist is reporting that further research is progressing on new types of user input devices. Specifically, "gaze gaming," a technology that promises faster interaction using only your eyes. Currently technology for sight-based interaction is far too slow for practical applications in things like gaming. "Eye-gaze systems bounce infrared light from LEDs at the bottom of a computer monitor and track a person's eye movements using stereo infrared cameras. This setup can calculate where on a screen the user is looking with an accuracy of about 5 mm."
Imagine turning this technology into a mouse (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Imagine turning this technology into a mouse (Score:4, Interesting)
I was thinking a contact lens with an inlaid tracker could improve the accuracy.
I already have suspicions that sitting in my cubical in front of my good old CRTs and other equipment is already unhealthy enough, wouldn't want to add more EMR in my face on top of that. Although I know there's nothing inherently unhealthy with IR EMR...
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Tried polarized sunglasses but I had to tilt my head 45 deg to be able to see the screen, by then I think I had negated my efforts with a sore neck to boot.
At least I don't have to worry about sunlight in my engineering pit of despair.
I can only hope that all the antioxidants in the beer catch all the free radicals...
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If you don't want electromagnetic radiation, turn off the lights.
I'd love to, but I am afraid to ask the other cubicle dwellers in my zone for fear of looking like a nutjob.
Here is an entry [wikipedia.org] on some health effects from office lighting.
Re:Imagine turning this technology into a mouse (Score:5, Funny)
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There are actually LCD monitors which actually have built in eye tracking hardware. [tobii.com]
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I'm not sure I can right now, but then I haven't exactly been practicing using my blinking techniques as much as I have been using my hands.
If this technology really is more than some vapourware, I can see it finally making console FPS's rival PC FPS's. I mean, the biggest reason why the mouse is better for controlling those games is precision and speed, but if you could simply look at your enemy to target them, you'd be just as fast. Then all you need
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In other words, it needs at least a 10x improvement to be a mouse replacement with current UIs.
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Fragging needs accuracy, and 2mm can mean the difference between 1337 and n008...
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just for fun on my 800x600 screen the default windows taskbar buttons are 6mm high. The slashdot submit button is 5x16mm It might be accurate enough, though down to a 1 or 2 mm range would be necessary to start out with.
Re:Imagine turning this technology into a mouse (Score:5, Informative)
The fovea (dense area of rods and cones) in the retina is large enough to give you approximately a 1 deg cone of "focus". Which means depending on the distance, you can focus on an area of a given size on the screen. So even with a perfect eye tracker, you cannot pinpoint gaze location exactly just by measuring eye orientation. Accuracy depends on distance from the screen, but 5mm is in the ballpark for what you can achieve (and that is with a perfectly calibrated system, real accuracy will be worse).
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So even with a perfect eye tracker, you cannot pinpoint gaze location exactly just by measuring eye orientation.
And even if you could, your brain is also capable of "steering" the region of view which is currently being focused on (in a mental sense). This occurs without moving your eyes. Your sharpest vision is dead center in your field of vision, but it is easy to "pay attention" to things which are not at that location -- think peripheral vision.
For some people (me included), this mental activity m
Re:Imagine turning this technology into a mouse (Score:4, Interesting)
Gaze tracking seems to me to be perfect for a secondary 'information' cursor. Wonder what the date is? Look at the clock on your taskbar and the calendar will pop up. Curious what guild that undead priest over there is in? Simply looking will give you some transparent overlay text detailing guild, current health/mana, and what spell he's casting. Cast your eyes to a person's name on your IM list and it'll tell you when they were last at their computer and what their status message is.
Another interesting thing I remember reading about was using eye tracking for security. The whole screen is a ramble of random characters, except the precise area of interest being focussed on, which is unscrambled. The viewer's brain assembles what they see into an unscrambled screen, and any onlooker just sees junk.
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Re:Imagine turning this technology into a mouse (Score:5, Informative)
Darting eyes indeed!
Why oh why do I have to think about a situation I was in a few years ago.
I was taking driving lessons together with a friend of me. I was sitting in the backseat when the driving instructor was explaining how it was very important to look ahead, but also that _you will tend to go wherever you are looking_.
And as if to emphasize the importance of this, our sometimes playful Universe introduced a few seconds later this synchronicity in the form of one of the most stunning blonde girls we have ever seen.. (oh those legs!)... my friend almost hit the sidewalk and I can still hear our driving instructor saying: "SEE!? That's what I mean! Keep your eyes on the road"
It was such a brilliant moment.
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It doesn't seem all that different than a trackpad or an optical mouse; those jitter quite a bit too if your sensitivity is cranked up too high, or move like molasses if your sensitivity is way too low.
In addition, given the way the brain adapts new physical activities, once you get used to using the eye tracking system to con
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Just as I don't want to look at the keyboard while I'm typing, or sometimes even at the screen (say, looking at some notes on my desk) I don't always want the mouse cursor where I'm looking.
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And yes, I know you didn't *click* a north button, but that isn't the point here
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Eyes are designed for frequent, small movements. Fingers aren't.
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Retinal image (Score:3, Interesting)
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Don't want Google tracking your web usage and viewing habits? Cross your eyes and view the internet through our MagicEye Filter Proxy!
Note: Be sure to configure your popup blockers to allow popups from this site, otherwise you'll be angrily staring at a big blurry mess for hours.
Sounds like the Great Equalizer... (Score:3, Insightful)
Otherwise, mostly a Gee Whiz! tech, though I suppose it could have useful applications for the disabled. But I wonder if we won't see wrist-based Repetitive Motion problems transferred to increased eyestrain...
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1 Bad guy pops onto screen.
2 You look at bad guy.
3 You move mouse.
4 Weapon points at bad guy.
5 You frag bad guy.
This technology is replacing step 3 with "Computer notices eye movement and calculates what you are looking at". Pretty cool
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I have found this to be the best way to counter the advantage the fast-twitch savants have in FPS/RTS.
Oh no! (Score:2, Insightful)
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This is GREAT!!! It means lots of opportunities (Score:2)
By making these things into eyeglass frames and using geo-positioning you can interpose a reactive layer between you and whatever you're looking at.
This means great possibilities for 'non-intrusive' gesture (or bluetooth device triggered click,) capture and subsequent playback for whatever you're interested in that you're looking at.
What I could do with something like that...
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Why not use a combination for more realism? FPS's lack eye focus because there is no way the FPS game can tell if you are looking at an object in the background and foreground and then blurr or focus depending on what you are looking at.
In real life this is how we look at things but in games they have to fake it by focusing at the tip of you gun in the newer games but sometimes the player doesn't always look there.
I hope this is not only for games (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'd rather have no cursor at all until I somehow signal that I want to interact with the screen at the current point of my gaze.
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Bingo. I can think of at least one perfect application for gaze-tracking: Growl notifications. The perfect fade time for a growl notification isn't three seconds, five, or 30; it's "right after I stop looking at it".
Google Reader kinda does this via scrolling; if you scroll past it, you've decided not to read it. That's a brilliant UI metaphor for attention.
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That's amazing and impressive. I've been in the IT and technology field for a long long time, long enough to know that I can never be 'sure' what will be coming in a few years or what current nascent technologies will be perefected and which will be busts.
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Ironically (given the claims in the article) I know this from playing an eye-tracker based game this year. The students who wrote it decided the hardware
I already don't... (Score:2)
So... this means... (Score:5, Funny)
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And after that... (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, and eventually they'll create a console that can read your intentions without any conscious effort on your part at all - all you have to do is exist.
This console will be called the Bii.
Followed by... (Score:2)
I think it was called "Gii".
Ok, I only see one issue (Score:4, Insightful)
Or, if you look up to check your HP/MP in an MMO, will you be randomly changing targets, or worse, disengaging them to move?
Its an interesting idea, definitely useful for somethings, but it shouldn't ever take the place of a mechanical pointing device like a mouse or trackball.
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This combined with perhaps a keyboard which features mouse buttons could be quite nice to work with.
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1) instead of replacing the mouse, this could be another separate input device.
2) You could use it for glance movements in FPS, or in other ways in other scenarios -- such as applying the OS X bubble dock effect to your screen; wherever you look on-screen is magnified. You could even add in a time element and have focus-follows-focus, with magnification kicking in if you rested your eyes in one place for longer than 2 seconds (unlikely unless you actually want to trigger
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If you glance down to check your ammo in real life, your focus changes just as if would in-game. Perhaps instead of looking down at a "virtual status bar," maybe now you'll actually be looking at the clips in the gun.
I think that could add yet another bit of interesting realism to the game.
Eye tracking is dumb. (Score:1)
What would you even use it for? Moving? Aiming? It'd be a poor choice either way, and you'd still need other input for all the other stuff you need to do.
It would be surprising if it ends up having any practical applications at all.
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When you focus on something, more info about it slowly appears.
Either it becomes more detailed then the suroundings, or details like health, stamina, or whatever.
It could be quite impressive.
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It turns out the mouse is actually very good at its job. Why do people keep trying to replace it?
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What about four eyes (Score:3, Interesting)
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Selective Rendering (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Selective Rendering (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand.... (Score:2)
The last study I read found that the high detail rendering must be performed within 5ms of a fixation to make the experience seamless to the user.
On the other hand, maybe the speed gain of only rendering a small part of the screen at ultra-high resolution *will* enable the applications to run at 200fps. (...as long as the screen refresh rate can keep up. Of course LCD is out of question at those frequencies).
I don't have exact number handy but perhaps a crude 320x240 (antialiased) resolution might be enough for peripheral vision and the 1600x1200-equivalent-DPI-wise could be kept only for the region the eyes are currently looking at.
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Not that much (Score:2)
So 3d engines would have to be substantially reorganized to take advantage of that kind of thing..
If you think at the *game engine* level.
I was thinking at the OPENGL/drivers level.
- There exists OpenGL implementations which could get OpenGL command and redistribue it accross several servers on the network, each rendering a part of the diplay.
- Poorman's Anti-aliasing on the early GeForce / TNT was done by intercepting OpenGL/DX commands and rendering it at a different resolution in a buffer and then subsequently smoothly downsizing the buffer to the screen.
- Current nVidia drivers produce stereo for g
Obligatory (Score:2, Redundant)
Continue use? (Score:2, Funny)
Good for games, but.. (Score:2)
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Hand/Eye Coordination... (Score:2, Funny)
Shifty eyes (Score:5, Insightful)
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For example, I'm proofreading a document, find an error, hit a key to position the cursor right where I'm looking at (Might be a problem for hunter/peckers)
Playing a game, I see a new target, right click to move the mouse to that position or to lock on him right away.
Blinking could be using for the click, but that might be problematic. Personally I can wiggle my ears, which would be a had way to interface for that click.
It's a little harder to do on an FPS
Re:Shifty eyes (Score:4, Informative)
I have. I'm a visual neuroscientist and my research involves accurate measurement of eye position. I also own a relatively high-end SLR camera that senses eye position to control focus (this is not a coincidence). Humans have exquisite control over their eyes. With a good low-latency mechanism to read gaze position, system control (camera, computer, whatever) becomes incredibly quick, efficient, and fluid. The only problem is that you do NOT want the cursor to always track your eye position, you need a switch: sometimes you want the cursor where you are looking, sometimes you want to leave the cursor in place and look around. But this switch is no more than the equivalent of a mouse button, a shift key on a keyboard, or a foot switch. All work, although I prefer the keyboard approach.
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I For One (Score:1)
Other than that, and possibly use for the handicapped, I don't see a use for this tech in games/applications. It'll be as reliable and annoying as voice recognition software.
Simple head tracking would be more useful. Tracking eyeballs fixed on a 2D plane will surely have horrible calibration issues, problems with multiple people looking at the same screen, problems with
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Looking plus voice (Score:2)
say "click"
or
say "nudge [right|left|up|down|north|northwest|west|..." , then say "click|pow|go|do it".
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As long as no lady's chests in image (Score:4, Interesting)
They tracked where guys were looking and it was not at the product.
In fact, they frequently didn't remember the product.
Very popular commercial of a girl exiting the water in a little suit holding a can of pepsi.
Third input (Score:1)
Keep the left stick or WASD keys controlling footwork, and the right stick or mouse controlling the point of view, but add this to allow interacting with some place other than the center of the screen.
The only problem I see is that, the way it works right now, you can spot a target and move the mouse so the target is at the center of the screen. Once you've got it there you can shoot at it while looking around the periphery of the sc
Visine stocks soar from Google targeted adds (Score:2)
Sore eyes from too much Gaze Gaming cursor control? Buy Visine!
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Me fail English? That's unpossible!
just like STNG.. (Score:3, Funny)
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Distractions (Score:2)
Maybe if I rig a set of blinders...
But wait, there's more! (Score:1)
- potential for gaming/military, maybe training sims, bad for desktops
- third input, as in mouse/gamepad assistance
- handicapped assistance
- head tracking benefits
- potential issues with glasses/contacts
- 'aiming' accuracy based on size/distance of screen
And then an additional comment:
So what if the thing was added to a helmet, with HUD. The fixed (configurable) distance between eye and sensor should increa
Warning (Score:1)
Why should it be used as a pointing device? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, But (Score:1)
John Carmack spoke about this (Score:2)
Probably not great on its own (Score:2)
Looks still can't kill .. (Score:3, Funny)
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