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Haier and Tobii have demonstrated the Gaze TV at Berlin’s IFA, letting users change channels by just looking at the screen.
Chinese electronics firm Haier partnered with Swedish eye-tracking technology company Tobii to produce a TV fit for couch potatoes too lazy to find the remote.
The TV works by having an attached sensor unit tracking the gaze and blinks of the user’s eye. They can then switch channels, change volume and carry out other functions by staring at the top or bottom of the screen and looking at the desired icon.
Hoping to collaborate with more manufacturers, Tobii’s chief executive Henrik Eskilsson said: ‘The free Tobii Gaze Interaction software development kit is available to companies interested in exploring the possibilities of gaze interaction and using this revolutionary technology to develop gaze applications that will take part in the future of computing and consumer electronics.’
To stop channels being changed willy-nilly when you’ve got a bunch of friends round to watch a football match, the senor has to be calibrated to each individual user to work.
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