Notebook prototype adds 'eye control' on top of keyboard, trackpad

At international tech tradeshow CeBIT on Tuesday, eye tracking technology company Tobii took the wraps off its first fully functional prototype notebook with integrated eye control. The company collaborated with PC maker Lenovo to include "eye control" technology on top of the standard keyboard/trackpad layout.

Another example of the growing sophistication of natural user interfaces, Tobii's eye control system lets users control the mouse pointer, select windows from exposé view, automatically scroll through a website, and create special eye controlled gadgets in a Windows sidebar.

Less on the interface side, but no less innovative, the notebook can also auto-dim its screen when there are no eyes looking at it, helping to conserve battery life.

Tobii is using eye control not to replace the traditional human interface devices, but rather to augment them and create a more responsive computing environment. Not only can the eye be used to directly control the PC, but down the road, it will be able to create a more nuanced interaction with machines.

For example, if you are reading a long piece of text, and you encounter a word you don't know, you could linger on it and automatically pull up the word's definition. Or in video gaming, degree of eye contact with non-player characters could influence their AI and thusly how they react to the player. Since human beings communicate nonverbally with eye gestures, a computer with access to that data can form a more intimate picture of the user's needs.

"What we find most exciting are the opportunities that eye control as part of natural user interfaces offer consumer electronics manufacturers in a range of product categories," said Barbara Barclay, general manager of Tobii North America. "We look forward to working with our partners to find many exciting ways to share and integrate this technology to advance their work."