Eye Gaze Control System

We all know that game consoles have always proved to be trend setters. The game craze aside, consoles gradually introduced new controllers to interact in more ways with the digital medium. Take for example Sony’s Eyetoy or Nintendo’s Wiimote, emotion controlled sensors, not to mention the Eye of Judgment concept. What our PCs saw in the last decade were only console-derived controllers, but nothing really revolutionary. Well, this is not the case anymore as researchers at Britain's De Montfort University have created an interface that can read the movements of the eye, enabling players to control games with just their gaze.

The Eye Gaze system is actually made of to parts. Firstly, infrared LEDs mounted at the bottom of a computer monitor send light to the subject's eyes. Then "stereo"(one for each eye) cameras interpret the reflected IR light to track exactly where the person is looking. Researches claim that their test proved the system is accurate up to 5 millimeters, or about the width of a paper clip. But that can prove too much in some cases… just think about the importance of 5 millimeters when your life depends on a headshot in an FPS game. Check out this demo clip:



The ingenious control system was originally developed to let disabled people play a little Halo 3 or the new GTA IV. The Eye Gaze would also be great for gamers who want to have that extra edge, although I’m not too sure if it really outperforms a 4000 DPI laser mouse. Anyway, it should do pretty good considering that you take the hand out of the eye-hand coordination equation. I wonder how they managed to click buttons with the eyes…