DoCoMo EOG update

While eye movement detection using EOG is nothing new the latest demonstration by Japanese NTT DoCoMo illustrates recent developments in the field. The innovation here is the form factor which is quite impressive. Typically EOG is detected using electrodes placed around the eyes as in Andreas Bullings prototype demonstrated at CHI 09 in Boston. Now it can be done using tiny sensors inside the ear. Just compare it to the prototype demonstrated last year!







Thanks Roman for the links!

Wearable EOG Goggles: Eye-Based Interaction in Everyday Environments

Andreas Bulling in the Wearable Computing Group at the Swiss Federal Insitute of Technology (ETH) is working on a new Electrooculography-based eye tracking system. This technology relies on the small but measurable electrical currents (potentials) created by the eye musculature. A set of electrodes are attached to the skin and after signal processing this data can be used for controlling computer interfaces or other devices. The obvious advantage of this method of eye tracking compared to the more traditional corneal reflection video-based methods is that its not sensitive to sunlight and may therefor be used outdoors. However, to my knowledge, it provide a lower accuracy, this results in most EOG interfaces relying on eye gestures rather than gaze fixations.

"We want to introduce the paradigm of visual perception and investigations on eye movements as new methods to implement novel and complement current context-aware systems. Therefore, we will investigate the potential but also possible limitations of using eye movements to perform context and activity recognition in wearable settings. Besides recognizing individual activities another focus will be put on long-term eye movement analysis." More information.

Recently Andreas got a paper accepted for the CHI 2009 conference in Boston (April 4-9th) where the system will be demonstrated during the interactivity session. Andreas and the team at ETH are planning to investigate attentive user interfaces (AUI) in mobile settings using wearable systems, such as the prototype demonstrated in the video below.

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