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ZTE wants your help bringing crowdsourced ideas to life
When ZTE launched its Project CSX challenge to crowdsource ideas for a mobile device, it was hard not to wonder which of those grandiose visions would make the cut. Well, now we know: ZTE has unveiled the three ideas that made it to phase two of the competition, where people will submit product concepts that translate those ideas to reality. Each of the winners is rather unusual, but just realistic enough that ZTE could put it into production.
Acer's latest PCs include the first curved screen laptop
You no longer have to stick to your desk to enjoy a flashy curved display. Acer is unveiling flood of new laptops at Germany's IFA show, and the highlight by far is the Predator 21 X -- according to Acer, the world's first curved screen laptop. As the name suggests, opening up this gigantic gaming portable reveals a 21-inch curved, ultra-wide display that promises more immersion than you're used to with portable gaming. It 'only' touts a 2,560 x 1,080 resolution, but NVIDIA G-Sync support should give you smoother, game-friendly output.
Eye-tracking software can gauge your intent and boredom in VR
One of the singular things about virtual reality is the freedom to look in any direction. But that's also one of its biggest narrative problems. How does a storyteller retain control when the viewer is free to decide where to look? The answer, it seems, is in the eyes.
ICYMI: Music with your eyes, 3D print everything and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-512707{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-512707, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-512707{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-512707").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: An engineer built a DIY musical instrument for people with disabilities, helping them create music with an eyetracking device. Two 3D-printed bits of technology caught our attention: One is for flesh, the other graphene aerogel. We are also reviewing a messenger app and a Kickstarter campaign for a speaker that basically makes us crazy. As always, please share any interesting science or tech videos, anytime! Just tweet us with the #ICYMI hashtag to @mskerryd.
Eye-tracking app lets you make music hands-free
Eye- and face-tracking systems already help you communicate when your hands aren't an option, but what if you want to have some fun? You're covered there, too. Andreas Refsgaard has built Eye Conductor, an app designed to help the paralyzed (and virtually anyone else) make music. All you need is a computer, an off-the-shelf eye tracker and a willingness to look slightly goofy as you twitch your eyes and open your mouth. Unlike some previous attempts, it's all about having an accessible, flexible interface -- you know exactly what sounds you'll make, whether it's an experimental piece or a slick dance track.
Tag enemies with your eyes in Tom Clancy's 'The Division'
If you're hankering for something to spice up The Division after months of playing, getting a Tobii eye tracker is probably your best bet. The Swedish company's devices are now compatible with the PC version of the title, which means the Tom Clancy game gets a bunch of cool, new eye-tracking features. What's perhaps the neatest of them all is the ability to tag or mark an enemy just by looking at them, so your team can see and shoot him. That's more efficient than, say, Battlefield's multiplayer system, wherein you'd have to tap another key to tag an opponent.
MSI's flagship gaming laptop gets an eye-tracking upgrade
If you're looking for a big, powerful gaming laptop, the MSI's GT72 Dominator has always been a solid choice -- but it's never been really interesting. The Dominator is known for a strong build, powerful internals, good speakers and a superb keyboard, but it never offered anything unexpected. Now it does. Later this month, MSI will be updating the Dominator with a fancy new gimmick: an integrated eye-tracking camera.
Eye-tracking robot arm lets you paint while you eat
One day, you might not have to even touch a canvas to make a masterpiece. Scientists from Imperial College London have developed a system that lets you paint hands-free through a combination of eye tracking and a robotic arm. All you do is adjust your gaze and blink at the right times -- you can even munch on breakfast while you're in mid-oeuvre. The technology is crude at the moment, but it should eventually become intuitive enough that you can focus on perfecting your style, rather than mastering the basics.
3D-printed, eye-tracking top reacts and contorts to creepy stares
The ultimate defense against the wandering eye: this 3D-printed design project reacts to anyone that's looking, thanks to a built-in camera and some facial tracking algorithms. Architect and designer Behnaz Farahi fashioned a top out of plastic, monochromatic spikes: these then undulate depending on what the camera picks up... and where you're looking. Yes, you. The project is the latest 3D-printed collaboration between Farahi, Pier 9 and Autodesk. As you'll see in the video after the break, there's a creepy degree of organic movement to the spikes — it looks like the clothing is almost breathing, ironically making you want to stare at it even more. Sorry.
Eye tracking will help the paralyzed talk to the outside world
Those affected by locked-in syndrome are effectively cut off from the outside world. They're paralyzed to the point where they can't move or speak -- in many cases, they might only have control over their eyes. Thankfully, technology might just use that remaining freedom to give these sufferers a voice. UC San Diego researchers are developing systems that use eye tracking for communication. One prototype, EyeHome, would have you navigating a phone-like interface by gazing at different parts of the screen. You'd look one way to dictate a message, or another to catch up on social networks. Other elements could include specialized e-book readers and even eye-guided musical instruments.
We played 'Assassin's Creed' with our eyes... partially
Taiwan's big tech trade show isn't just about CEOs shouting about their newest laptops and tablets. It's also the place for execs to shake hands, make deals and do ole' fashioned business. One deal is putting Tobii's eye-tracking tech inside high-end MSI gaming hardware. Yep, it's a concept, but it's underscored by a deal to work together on developing eye tracking in gaming hardware in the future. But we're not really about doing deals and shaking hands; we're about stabbing enemy soldiers and hiding in haystacks, which is where the Assassins' Creed demo came in. The trio of short-range infrared sensors monitors your eye movement, which (at least how they're utilized in this particular game) allow you to adjust your field of vision to where you want to in the game. Instead of rotating the camera with a mouse or buttons, you simply look to where you want to, and the detection software kicks in and sweeps the camera to where you (more often than not) want it to.
Another Oculus competitor heads to Kickstarter
By the end of next year, there'll be so many virtual reality headsets in stores that you'll wonder if you even need a TV anymore. Fove is one such device and, unlike many of its rivals, offers built-in eye tracking that promises better depth of field, more natural movement and line-of-sight targeting in FPS games. The company is also boasting that the headset's ability to work out where you're looking will enable your PC to adjust its rendering resources accordingly. There's also talk that the Fove development kit will seamlessly work with titles published in Unity, Unreal Engine and CryEngine, so it won't be too difficult to adapt big-budget games to work with the hardware.
'Street Fighter' pros hardly even look at their character
Do something enough and it becomes second nature: muscle memory and instinct kicks in. But does that hold for the high-twitch dynamics of pro gaming-level Street Fighter 4? Japanese gaming site 4Gamer rigged up a gaming PC with SteelSeries' Sentry Gaming Eye Tracker, watching the gaze of Street Fighter pro-gamer Sako as he indulged in a few rounds. Rather than focus on his own player, or the opponent, his view typically rests somewhere between the two; the pro-gamer likely trying to gauge incoming attacks and connect distance for their own. As the Japanese site notes, it wasn't exactly a high stakes bout, but the video suggests, at least, that it's not where your character is, but where it's going that's important. Which is also this editor's life philosophy, coincidentally. See where the pros are looking, right after the break.
Cleveland Indians want to put ads where fans can see them
Advertisers and sponsors are extremely valuable to all professional sports teams, and thus it is very important to keep them engaged with the fans. In an effort to make this happen, the Cleveland Indians recently partnered with Tobii, a maker of eye-tracking glasses, to conduct a study that could determine what exactly folks look at throughout their time at Progressive Field. The MLB team says it gave 47 fans a pair of Tobii Glasses to use during the span of three days, which were worn as they watched games from various seating areas at its ballpark. Essentially, using the Tobii Insight research program as the basis, the goal was to see how much time participants spent looking at the main scoreboard and other dynamic signage. In theory, this would detect just how valuable certain locations are inside the stadium -- so, the easier it is for you spot it, the more it could potentially cost for a company to put an ad there.
This system can tell if workers are lying by looking at their eyes
Eye-based lie detection has long been the stuff of research and science fiction, but it's about to become a practical reality in the office. Converus is releasing EyeDetect, a hardware and software combo that helps companies find out if their workers are on the level. The system revolves around an SMI-made camera that monitors pupil dilation as well as the positions of the eyes and head. If you look shifty when answering questions, your supervisors will likely know within minutes. It's not a perfect system; Converus claims 85 percent accuracy, which could allow for occasional false positives. We'll know EyeDetect's real-world usefulness very soon, though, as it's launching in Mexico this April.
Eyes on with Tobii's gaming eye-tracking engine and SteelSeries prototype hardware (updated)
Tobii's getting serious about bringing eye tracking to gamers the world over. Days ago, the company announced a partnership with SteelSeries to build a new sensor bar (still in development) and its EyeX engine meant to bring eye tracking to more games in 2014. Today at CES, we got to see a non-functioning prototype of that SteelSeries the EyeX dev kit hardware (seen in our gallery below) and test out EyeX playing Deus Ex. As a bit of background, the EyeX engine was released a month ago, and using Tobii's SDK and APIs to implement it, devs can combine gaze controls with regular mouse, keyboard and touchpad inputs to provide new gaming user experiences. Our demo using the Tobii REX sensor, was a bit rough, given that the game was running at a startlingly low frame rate for some reason, and the device hadn't been calibrated to our eyeballs due to time constraints. Still, we could see the potential for the technology, as it allows for faster in-game navigation. For example, the EyeX middleware allows for developers to overlay quick menus on top of the game screen at a touch of a button, and you make your selection by merely looking at the icon you want. Additionally, the control for aiming down the sights simply required closing one eye, while squatting or looking around corners was accomplished by moving our head up and down or side to side. In practice, the menu selection was the smoothest and most accurate implementation, while the character movements were far less reliable -- they worked in about two out of three attempts. Of course, you don't have to take our word for it, you can see for yourself in the video after the break. Update: The sensor bar pictured below is not a product of the SteelSeries partnership, it's actually a prototype of the forthcoming EyeX developer kit sensor. Richard Lai contributed to this report.
Eye Tribe starts taking pre-orders for $99 Windows eye tracker
Leap Motion, Kinect or MYO could satisfy your yearning for motion control, but an itch for eye-tracking tech might be harder to scratch. There aren't a lot of them on the market yet, which Eye Tribe hopes to change now that it's opened pre-orders for the developer edition of its Windows peripheral. Similar to the Tobii REX, the Eye Tribe Tracker is a thin bar that plugs into a PC or a tablet via USB and follows your line of sight, except its $99 price is a bit more palatable. Since the firm's hoping developers will integrate eye control to existing games and software for the benefit of future buyers, the first version of the device will come with an SDK. Eye Tribe's yet to lay out plans for the Android version showcased in April -- the video after the cut also hints at iOS and OS X integration -- but it has promised to ship the Windows eye tracker before the year ends.
SMI launches Eye Tracking Glasses 2.0 with smartphone-based recorder (video)
Remember SMI's Eye Tracking Glasses? They use a pair of small cameras on the rim to follow your gaze, allowing corporate and academic types to to see exactly what consumers and other subjects are focused on. Now the German company has launched Eye Tracking Glasses 2.0, an update that brings a slimmer design, instant setup, 60Hz eye-tracking performance and a smartphone-based recorder -- currently a customized Samsung Galaxy S4. Along with a bit less dorky look, the new electronics allow for much smoother tracking and shorter gaze time perception, according to SMI. There's no word on pricing or availability for businesses, but there is a rather dry video after the break.
Google patent would track objects within your gaze
Google already has a patent that would let Glass and other eyewear identify what's in front of you. However, it just received a new patent for a method that could follow your exact gaze. The proposed system would include both forward-facing and eye-tracking cameras, correlating both to determine what's grabbing your attention. It could gauge emotional responses to objects by watching for pupil dilation, and it could be used to charge advertisers based on how long wearers stare at a given ad. Google may also have an eyepiece upgrade to go along with its gaze detection, we'd note -- the company just received a patent for a quantum dot-based eye display. There's no evidence that Google will use either of these new inventions anytime soon, but we wouldn't be surprised if they represent what Glass could look like a few generations from now.
Tobii and Synaptics team on eye-tracking Ultrabook concept
While Tobii has a peripheral that brings eye tracking to Windows PCs of all sorts, there's little doubt that an integrated approach would be more elegant. The company agrees: it's partnering with Synaptics on a concept Ultrabook (seen above) that combines both Gaze UI and Synaptics' pressure-sensitive ForcePad in a showcase of new input methods. The partners haven't said just what new tricks they'll demonstrate, if any, but it's clear that there won't be a size penalty when the concept is as slim as the laptops in stores today. Synaptics and Tobii plan to tour the PC throughout the industry during the summer and the fall, and they're no doubt hoping that a few vendors use the concept as inspiration.
