Meet Lenovo’s eye-controlled notebook. Developed in conjunction with Swedish-based Tobii, this computer is the first fully functional prototype of Tobi’si eye-tracking technology that allows users to zoom, automatically center on what they’re focusing on, auto-dim and brighten the display, scroll through documents with their eyes.
Currently there exists only 20 of these machines and they’re split between Lenovo and Tobii so the two companies can demo and develop the technology even further. However, this implementation of the technology is also on display at CeBIT 2011, in Hanover, Germany, and attendees are being given the chance to try out the eye-tracking control software for themselves.
Engadget’s Chris Ziegler says the technology works “extraordinarily well” and offered tracking with pinpoint precision, despite a sloppy calibration job at the beginning. According to Ziegler, the level of precision was further demonstrated with a simple game that sees the user blow up Earth-bound asteroids just by looking at them. “The smallest rocks were only a few pixels wide, and we could consistently blast 'em.”
Nothing on how soon we’ll see this technology in laptops that we can actually buy in stores but it’ll likely be a few years. Tobii says it continues to work with partners on implementing the technology but offered no time frame in its press kit.
