Gadgets

Launch apps on Windows 8 just by looking at them

28 January 2012

John Howell

Windows 8 is coming soon (perhaps as early as April this year). With a new tile based user interface designed for touch screen technology, it's likely to be a major shift from how traditional Windows users interact with their digital devices. Even before Windows 8's official launch however, a technology company called Tobii is offering a glimpse of another way to interact with your tablet or PC. Tobii's eye tracking application called Gaze looks wild.

If touch isn't your thing and physical gestures (like Microsoft's Kinect software already allows with the Xbox) seem lame, perhaps this could be your chosen way of working?

Sensor units sit just above the PC's keyboard and track exactly what your eyes are focusing on. Faced with 15 coloured tiles, you just have to stare at one to select it. The sensors follow the subtle movement of your eyeballs. The demo seems to suggest that even extremely small links can be selected (such as a table of hyperlinks on a standard web page).

In the first YouTube demo below, a physical click is still needed to launch the app, but as Gaze is still in development,  I'm guessing this will be worked on before launch. Two blinks to open a program perhaps?

Personally I'm betting in the not too distant future we'll interact with computers using multiple approaches simultaneously: voice, gestures, eye tracking, facial recognition, touch, along with the traditional mouse and keyboard all have there place.

Can't wait to see how Gaze's eye tracking technology fares in the consumer wild. Watch the Youtube videos below to learn more. The first is a demo of their eye tracking technology using the upcoming Windows 8, the second video demonstrates previously released hardware and software for Windows 7.