The mouse is one of a computer’s essential parts, making things faster to do. Pointing devices such as touchpads do the same. Now imagine if you can do that with a blink of your eye. Open your email by looking at it and everything you do with your mouse. A researcher at Stanford can make the mouse a history.
Manu Kumar, a doctoral student at Stanford, invented a technology that allows people to do basic computing tasks like highlighting text, clicking on links on a website, and others by simply looking at the screen and tapping a key on the keyboard.
How does GUIDe work?
He used eye tracking hardware comprising a computer screen with a high-definition camera, infrared lights, and EyePoint software. The camera picks up the movement of the user’s pupil and the reflection of the infrared light of the cornea, which is used as the reference point as it doesn’t move.
A person looking at the screen can, for example, a link and, using a hotkey on the keyboard, magnify it and then pinpoint to click it. What makes his approach different than other eye tracking devices is it’s not solely based on eye movement, which reduces the amount of error that can be generated.
His survey
He studied this on 20 people and found people are more convenient than using the mouse. They can point faster using his gaze-based approach. About 90% of the people reported they preferred using EyePoint over the mouse.
Conclusion
Though his technology is outstanding, he made are pretty at the current stage. The special monitor he uses costs around USD 25000. His technology has to improve a lot, and he is testing different interfaces under his GUIDe technology so it can be beneficial for any normal user. You can check out the Stanford HIC group Publication for more detail.
I would surely like to use this if it comes to the public. What do you think about this? Would u go for a device like this or prefer an eye-pointing device like this or stick to the mouse?
