Eye-Tracking Laptop
Barbara Barclay of Tobii Technology, Inc., who is seen reflected in a computer monitor, plays a video game in New York, Monday, Feb. 28, 2011, using only her eyes on a prototype laptop that tracks and can be controlled by the eye movements. PA

Tobii, a Swedish company, has devised an eye-tracking computer technology that enables users to operate Windows 8 by merely gazing at the screen or icon where they want to click.

The software goes into a small, compact rectangular device which sits below the laptop screen and tracks the user's eye movement with the aid of a built-in sensor.

Gaze can be activated with a single tap of the trackpad and it takes just a few seconds to scan the user's pupil and calculate the co-ordinate points of gaze using algorithms.

The algorithm draws an imaginary "head movement box" to process the range of motion in which the user's head can move and enable the device track eye movements.

According to Tobii, the sensor's precision is limited to measuring within a quarter-inch of a tile or icon the user is staring at. However, for navigating through smaller icons and text, Gaze supports the use of the laptop's trackpad by pressing the fingers down on it instead of a single tap.

Watch the working of Gaze software on Windows 8 in this cool video:

Gaze is expected to ship on laptops initially before making its debut on larger television screens. Tobii business development manager, Anders Olsson, has suggested that the growing interest in gesture control technology has spurred the development of the eye-tracking software.

He said large-scale implementation of the new technology would take at least a couple of years and the technology isn't quite up to the speed for use in TVs.The software is expected to debut at CES this year.