The eye's have it!

If you haven't noticed, there is a theme to my most recent blogs. The relationship between ourselves and our technology is changing! You have read about neural interfaces, the headsets that capture your brainwaves and convert them into basic commands on the computer. This amazing technology is improving daily. Disappearing keyboards was the topic of my most recent blog, detailing how input is being delivered through a variety of technologies and methods.

Enter Tobii an international company that focuses (no pun intended) on the eyes. Using technology in a similar context as face recognition technology, Tobii tracks and takes commands from the eye.

Stephen Hawking, world-renowned theoretical physicist with ALS (Lou Gehrig Disease), has been using eye-tracking technology to communicate for years. Of course, there was a cost to be ahead of your time; but today, Tobii, even though it is expensive costing about $10,000 per device for the PC Eye version, can have a tremendous life enriching impact for an individual who can't move their hands. Now they can surf the net just by looking around.

The application of this technology continues to advance and is becoming available at a lower cost. Tobii has released a version called Gaze with the implications pertain to productivity improvements. The device works with Microsoft Windows 8 operating system. Using Gaze, a call center operator can select the call answer tile that has been programmed using Windows 8. The call center operator simply looks at the tile and taps the mouse, keyboard, or touch pad... that's right, no movement of the cursor required, just a tap. Gaze knows what tile you are looking by tracking your eye. A tap becomes a mouse click, but you did not move the mouse, Gaze did. Booya! Call answered.

Using this technology in a call center environment can significantly reduce the number of key strokes and mouse moves by the millions per month, reducing fatigue and increasing productivity significantly.

What next? How about a keypad at the check-out counter that you just have to look at to enter your pin! How secure is that?! You long no longer have to be concerned about shoulder surfing pin grabbers!