Hasta La Gadget!

The Eye Tribe, which took the stage today at TechCrunch’s CES Hardware Battlefield, is developing hardware that allows users to control technology with the motion of their eyes.

In fact, co-founder and CEO Sune Alstrop Johansen told me that the company has started shipping its first units and software development kits (they’re available for $99), and that the initial users should be receiving them now.

Johansen said The Eye Tribe has also raised another $1 million in seed funding, bringing its total seed/angel funding to $1.8 million. (It  also received a $1.3 million grant from the Danish government.) The money comes from “primarily existing investors, board members and key individuals from the US,” he said — new backers include former semiconductor executive Richard Sanquini.

CES marks the first time that the finished product, not just a prototype, has been demonstrated publicly, he added. And although the initial version was built for Windows, he said the company is unveiling a Mac version too. As for the iOS and Android versions that the company has mentioned in the past, Johansen said they’re still on the product roadmap but declined to get specific.

I didn’t get a chance to try the product out for myself, but if you’ve ever wanted to see someone play Fruit Ninja with their eyes, well, watch this video.

As you can probably guess from the fact that an SDK is included, the company is currently focused on recruiting the developers that it hopes will actually build applications that take advantage of these capabilities. In fact, when a prototype of The Eye Tribe Tracker was demonstrated in our Hardware Alley at last fall’s Disrupt Europe conference, the company said it was also going to provide free trackers to developers with the best ideas.

Those ideas also help answer the question, “Why the heck would I want to control software with my eyes?” — they give a sense of what people could potentially do with the technology. The winners include an idea for a device combining eye tracking and EEG technology to help those with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) communicate, as well as ideas for driver assist applications, breast cancer detection, drone control, and improved reading on tablets.

Last fall, a company representative told us that users don’t have to train themselves to act differently. Instead, they claimed that after the initial calibration, users could just let their eyes interact normally with applications and the software should respond accordingly.

The company has also said the eventual goal is to partner with hardware makers who want to integrate these capabilities — so in the future, you could get a tablet with eye-tracking capabilities built in, rather than having to buy a separate to device. In fact, Johansen told me this week that the company is setting up an office in Palo Alto “as we believe this will be the best place for us to engage” with the manufacturers.

You can see the specs of The Eye Tribe Tracker here.

[CES 2014] Gamers are probably well-aware of the brand SteelSeries who are known as a manufacturer of gaming accessories and peripherals, such as headphones, gaming mice, keyboards, and have even sponsored gaming teams, such as DotA 2’s Na’Vi. Now SteelSeries will be teaming up with Tobii, which for those unfamiliar is a company that specializes in eye tracking technology. With SteelSeries and Tobii involved, the end result is an eye-tracking gaming peripheral which they are calling the world’s first mass-market consumer eye-tracking device for gamers. (more…)

Tobii And SteelSeries Team Up For Eye-Tracking Gaming Accessory original content from Ubergizmo.

A couple of years ago, Tobii made headlines when they unveiled their eye-tracking sensor. We first saw it installed on a laptop and then on gaming machines. Now Tobii wants to ride the tablet revolution with the EyeMobile, an add-on for Windows 8 Pro tablets.

The EyeMobile makes use of Tobii’s USB-based PCEye Go sensor, a custom mounting bracket that doubles as a tablet stand and a Windows 8 Pro tablet. Tobii will be selling a bundle that includes the Dell Latitude 10 tablet, but you can also buy the sensor and the bracket separately if you already have a Windows 8 tablet.

In their hands-on with the EyeMobile, Digital Trends found the sensor to be quite accurate. Going back to the tablet in the top image, you can see a virtual dock on the right edge of the screen. You first have to look at one of the icons on the dock then look elsewhere to perform an action. For instance, if you want to left-click on something, you can’t just look at the thing you want to click. You first have to look at the left-click icon on the dock and then at the thing you want to click. It’s a bit tedious, but for people with certain disabilities this is a great way – if not the only way – for them to use modern technology. In addition, the PCEye Go sensor can be detached from the mounting bracket and used with a laptop or computer.

Tobii will be selling the PCEye Go sensor for $3,900 (USD) while the bracket costs $350. They’re pricey for sure, but it’s way better than nothing. Check out this video if you want to see how life-changing Tobii’s eye-tracking sensor can be (and if you need a good cry.)

Head to the EyeMobile website for more information.

[via Digital Trends]

Denmark’s The Eye Tribe is not an indigenous group that worships the ocular organ, but a startup that works in machine vision, specifically developing eye tracking tech for use in consumer electronics. In service of its goal of delivering gaze controlled games and software applications to users on a broad scale, The Eye Tribe today unveiled a $99 USB 3.0 hardware accessory for Windows devices, which provides eye tracking capabilities to any tablet, laptop or PC running Microsoft’s desktop OS.

The Eye Tribe Tracker, as it’s called, is aimed at developers, and ships with an SDK to help devs build eye tracking and control functionality into their existing software. Just a few lines of code are required, The Eye Tribe claims, resulting in a real-time feed on “on-screen gaze coordinates” which a software developer can use as an input mechanism or to collect data.

This initial batch of pre-orders is targeted specifically at developers, The Eye Tribe co-founder and CEO Sune Alstrup Johansen tells me, but the eventual goal is to ship to consumers, something Johansen says the company would “preferably” accomplish “together with an OEM.”

“We are determined to provide eye tracking for everyone,” he explained. “Finding a strong hardware partner that will bring this to market with us is the optimal way for us. However, we can and will do it ourselves, if we do not find the right partner in proper time.”

As for the current price point, which seems quite low at under $100 for The Eye Tribe’s advanced tech, Johansen wouldn’t say exactly whether the startup was making money or taking a loss on these dev units, but did say they expect pricing of Eye Tribe hardware to go down, and the cost of the tech itself being largely invisible to general users.

“We wanted this to be available for every developer out there, and our software can work with affordable components,” he said. “In the future prices will go down, as volume goes up. We want to earn money on licensing, not on hardware sales. We see this being integrated into tables, smartphones and laptop without any visible price changes for the consumers.”

Samsung and others are building similar tech into mobile devices, and other startups like Israel’s Umoove are anticipating demand from OEMs. Still, it’s hardly a crowded space just yet. If The Eye Tribe can get a jump on the market by seeding low-cost developer hardware, then it should stand a chance of becoming a go-to supplier, when and if eye tracking becomes a standard device feature.

Remember those “Fortaleza” AR glasses we saw in a leaked Microsoft document back when the Xbox One was still the Xbox 720? It looks like those might actually be a thing, if a patent application from Redmond is any indication. It touts the idea of “multiplayer gaming with a head-mounted display,” claiming the device could receive voice commands, track your eyes, calculate depth and recognize the faces of fellow players. All that would be in the rather narrow service of letting you invite others and accept invitations to a game through strictly visual means, though. That makes it similar to another recent Microsoft patent we saw for augmenting live events with AR, since the emphasis is on a specific usage rather than the eyewear itself. We might even see an application some day for actual gaming on such a device, but meanwhile, check after the break for more images.

Filed under: Gaming, Wearables, Microsoft

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Via: NeoGAF

Source: USPTO