Text 2.0 gaze assisted reading

From the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence comes a new demonstration of a gaze based reading system, Text 2.0, which utilizes eye tracking for making the reading experience more dynamic and interactive. For example the system can display images relevant to what your reading about or filter out less relevant information if your skimming through the content. The research is funded through the Stiftung Rheinland-Pfalz für Innovation. On the groups website you can also find an interesting project called PEEP which allows developers to connect eye trackers to Processing which enables aesthetically stunning visualizations. This platform is the core of the Text2.0 platform. Check out the videos.




More information:
Zdf.de: Wenn das auge die seite umblaettert?
Wired: Eye-Tracking Tablets and the Promise of Text 2.0
More demos at the groups website

Gaze & Voice recognition game development blog

Jonathan O'Donovan, a masters student in Interactive Entertainment Technology at the Trinity College in Dublin, have recently started a blog for his thesis. It will combine gaze and voice recognition for developing a new video game. So far the few posts available have mainly concerned the underlying framework but a proof-of-concept combining gaze and voice is demonstrated. The project will be developed on a Microsoft Windows based platform and utilizes the XNA game development framework for graphics and the Microsoft Speech SDK for voice input. The eye tracker of choice is a Tobii T60 provided by Acuity ETS (Reading, UK). The thesis will be supervised by Veronica Sundstedt at the Trinity College Computer Science dept.
Keep us posten Jonathan, excitied to see what you'll come up with!





Update: 
The project resulted in the Rabbit Run game which is documented in the following publication:

• J. O’Donovan, J. Ward, S. Hodgins, V. Sundstedt (2009) Rabbit Run: Gaze and Voice Based Game Interaction (PDF). 

A framework for gaze selection techniques (Tonder et al., 2008)

Martin van Tonder, Charmain Cilliers and Jean Greyling at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, South Africa presented a platform independent framework in the proceedings of the 2008 annual research conference of the South African Institute of Computer Scientists. The framework is platform independent (relying on Java) and supports multiple interaction methods such as Kumars EyePoint, popups, as well as data logging and visualization.

Abstract
Experimental gaze interaction techniques are typically prototyped from scratch using proprietary libraries provided by the manufacturers of eye tracking equipment. These libraries provide gaze data interfaces, but not any of the additional infrastructure that is common to the implementation of such techniques. This results in an unnecessary duplication of effort. In this paper, a framework for implementing gaze selection techniques is presented. It consists of two components: a gaze library to interface with the tracker and a set of classes which can be extended to implement different gaze selection techniques. The framework is tracker and operating system independent, ensuring compatibility with a wide range of systems. Support for user testing is also built into the system, enabling researchers to automate the presentation of est targets to users and record relevant test data. These features greatly simplify the process of implementing and evaluating new interaction techniques. The practicality and flexibility of the framework are demonstrated by the successful implementation of a number of gaze selection
techniques.

• van Tonder, M., Cilliers, C., and Greyling, J. 2008. A framework for gaze selection techniques. In Proceedings of the 2008 Annual Research Conference of the South African institute of Computer Scientists and information Technologists on IT Research in Developing Countries: Riding the Wave of Technology (Wilderness, South Africa, October 06 - 08, 2008). SAICSIT '08, vol. 338. ACM, New York, NY, 267-275. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1456659.1456690