|
“Active Eyetracking” means the conscious and explicit use of eye movement to control the operation of an electronic device. This instance of human/machine interaction – profoundly different from the usual mouse and keyboard – has many fields of application, ranging from assistance in other modes of more conventional use of a computer to cases (such as severe disability) where eyetracking is, in fact, the only technology mature and currently used and available on the market. Contrary to what is often heard, eyetracking is not simply “a mouse controlled by the eyes”: with the mouse, there is a clearly-defined distinction between pointing, and action (click), while ocular observations of something indicates if something is to be watched or read, or if a program should be run (the immediate idea of using blinking to “click” is not a good one). Additionally, the eyetracker is much less precise than a mouse; for all those reasons and others, the standard interfaces of windows, buttons and menus do not combine well with such a “natural” interaction. This is why SR LABS has chosen the difficult path of completely redesigning the interfaces of their applications, building on years of experience in using this amazing technology. |