What Will Apple Do With Swedish Eye-Tracking Technology?

andylim writes "An article on recombu.com explores the possibility that Apple is gearing up to launch eye-tracking technology soon. Citing a patent filed in 2008 that mentions 'gaze vectors' and a recent purchase of units from a Swedish eye-tracking company, the author suggests that the inclusion of eye-tracking tech in the company's forthcoming tablet would be Jobs's magnum opus. 'What better flourish to a career that began with the popularization of windows, icons, mouse and pointer than to usurp them all?'"

Re:Swedish Eye-Tracking

[mcgrew]

Eye tracking has been used for useability studies for quite some time. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ [useit.com]

don't woosh me, bro...

Re:the Eye-pod?

[icebike]

Not only too soon but too expensive.

Tobii (the Swedish company in question) has products that start at $7500 bucks per unit.
http://www.tobii.com/corporate/eye_tracking/our_technology.aspx [tobii.com]

Further, all of their devices require custom installations.
http://www.tobii.com/market_research_usability/products_services/eye_tracking_hardware/tobii_x120_eye_tracker.aspx [tobii.com]

Although they claim it works with eyeglasses in the real world that does not work due to the narrow range of tints and prescriptions that can be handled.

That has never stopped them

[gsgriffin]

The iPhone has multi-gesture apps because Apple first came to the broad market with such a device. People will build software to what hardware manufacturers make popular, ont the other way around.