Technology never ceases to amaze. This week at a trade show in Hanover, Germany the unveiling of a piece of the future was revealed. Tobii, a company from Sweden, working with Lenovo, a laptop company, made the introduction to the world of their eye-controlled computer technology.
Eye-movement technology works without a mouse or the control of the touchscreen. Instead, infrared lights hidden in the laptop follow the movement of your eye. Using what the eye focuses on to select and scroll; all hands free. Imagine how this will speed up your ability to go from window to window.
This new technology will allow you to zoom in on anything that you need a closer look at, a map or a picture. It will magnify the very spot you are focusing on showing details. This will save you time tremendously.
Though it will be a few years before you will be able to find these on the market, just knowing they are in the works is amazing. Twenty prototypes have been split between Tobbi and Lenovo to be used for continued development and demonstrations.
Imagine how this technology will affect those with disabilities, hands free surfing the web. Gamers will be taken to a whole new level of gaming. Can you imagine playing war games with just the movement of your eye? The enemy will not have a chance.
Barbara Barclay from Tobii North America noted, “We anticipate that people will extremely excited to be able to control their computer with their eyes. But what we find most exciting are the opportunities that eye control as part of multi-modal interfaces offer consumer electronics manufacturers in a range of categories. We look forward to working with our partners to find many exciting ways to share and integrate this technology to advance their work.”
Tobii and Lenovo have set a high bar for the computer world to reach. Looks as if a lot of unnamed companies are going to have to do a little catching up.