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Engadget goes eyes-on with Tobii EyeAsteroids 3D

David Hinkle — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 20:00:00 EST

While we're busy hounding developers at GDC this week, our sister site Engadget have been over in Germany, rocking the annual CeBIT tech conference. Usually this wouldn't be relevant information to you, dear reader -- we bring this up because Engadget produced a pretty nice video looking at EyeAsteroids.

It's, uh, Asteroids you play with your eyes, in case you haven't been paying attention.

Engadget goes eyes-on with Tobii EyeAsteroids 3D originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 09 Mar 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EyeAsteroids is an arcade cabinet you play with your eyes

Jordan Mallory — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:00:00 EST

EyeAsteroids, an Asteroids clone and frustratingly missed pun opportunity, is an arcade game from Tobii Technology that uses the company's proprietary eye-tracking solutions to recognize where you are looking on the screen, without the use of any other human interfaces. By bouncing invisible infrared lights off of the player's corneas and then monitoring the changes in the reflections generated, the arcade cabinate can extrapolate the eyes' position in 3D space and determine the angle of their gaze.

"In other words, the eye tracker works much like you would if you face another person and estimate at what they are looking just by observing their eyes," according to Tobii Technology's layman-friendly website. Fifty EyeAsteroid cabinets have been produced at $15,000 a pop, which is roughly the cost of one and a half Street Fighter 4 head-to-head vs. cabinets. If you happen to live in jolly ol' London Towne, an EyeAsteroid cab will be on display at the Trocadero until February 17.

EyeAsteroids is an arcade cabinet you play with your eyes originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Valve expresses interest in eye tracking, improving experience for able and disabled gamers

Andrew Yoon — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 14:30:00 EST

Valve is no stranger to experimenting with new ways of communicating and tracking data within games. Whether it's something as simple as closed captioning and customizable controls, or something a bit more niche like a colorblind mode, many of Valve's games have been celebrated for being more accessible. Mike Ambinder of Valve Software spoke with Gamasutra and explained how company's pursuits enables it to "improve the experience of both able and disabled gamers."

In addition to previously documented research into sign language, Valve's Ambinder also expresses interest in "the potential of eyetrackers and the eventual ability to let gamers use their eyes as active controller inputs." With this method, you may be able to control a game completely hands-free ... without having to use your entire body as an input device. "It may be possible in the future to let the eyes act as a proxy for the mouse cursor, letting gamers transmit navigation and targeting inputs via eye movements. If you couple this approach with the use of blinks or other proxies for button presses, you may remove the need for a mouse and keyboard (or gamepad) all together," Ambinder added.

While eye tracking sounds particularly ambitious, there are many other efforts in place by designers to make a game work better for disabled gamers. Read the full Gamasutra write-up for more.

Valve expresses interest in eye tracking, improving experience for able and disabled gamers originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 26 Dec 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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