Lenovo and Tobii Technology are tag-teaming on the world’s first laptop with integrated eye control. Lenovo built the eye-controlled laptop using Tobii’s eye-tracking technology. The prototype is on display at CeBIT in Hanover, Germany, this week.
While most computer manufacturers are working to deliver products with more natural interfaces, the Lenovo-Tobii effort is the first that lets users depend on their eyes to point, select and scroll down a page. The eye-control technology doesn’t aim to replace the mouse and keyboard, but to enhance it. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.
“More than anything else, the Tobii laptop prototype is proof that our eye-tracking technology is mature enough to be used in standard computer interfaces,” said Henrik Eskilsson, CEO of Tobii. “To reach a state where the technology is part of the average computer, we need to make it smaller and cheaper.”
Glance To Click
Here’s how it works: Users can glance at an icon or gadget. The computer will then display additional information. Users can zoom in on pictures or maps and automatically center on what they are looking at.
The prototype computer can also brighten the screen when it recognizes a user’s eyes to save battery life, and auto-dim it when no one is looking at the screen. Tobii says the eye-control technology can speed up usage by empowering new ways to switch between open windows, reading e-mails, and reviewing documents.
“We anticipate that people will be extremely excited to be able to control their computer with their eyes,” said Barbara Barclay, general manager of Tobii North America. “But what we find most exciting are the opportunities that eye control as part of natural user interfaces offers consumer electronics manufacturers in a range of product categories.”
Useful Enough?
Roger Kay, principal analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates, sees an immediate application for paraplegics. However, he…