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FitBit for the mind: Gaze tracker watches what you read
Ashok Sinha/getty
Technology
For more technology stories, visit newscientist.com/technology
their volunteers to read different types of materials – novels, fashion magazines, newspapers, research papers and textbooks – they have shown that these various media can be discerned near perfectly from the way readers’ eyes move around their telltale layouts. For example, users would get Fitbit-style metrics on how much time they spend – or waste – reading celebrity gossip when they should be revising. Or, says Kunze, publishers could work out if textbook designs need rethinking by seeing how readers navigate their pages. If the software knows what the document is – a novel being read on a Kindle, say – then more advanced features can be used. “It could lead to adaptive reading materials in which the –What’s catching your eye?– computer recognises I have trouble understanding a particular word and changes the text in real time to give me the definition in the next sentence,” he says. Kunze will reveal more at the Augmented Human meeting in Kobe, Japan, in March. Eye-tracking systems are about to go mainstream – and they could Eye-tracking experts are abuzz. give us some fascinating insights into our reading habits “I find it difficult to be consciously aware of my reading habits and ADDICTED to the Mail Online’s content. It could also generate Denmark. This will allow in-game my ability to absorb the textual infamous celebrity tittle-tattle summaries of documents as characters to react to the player’s information that surrounds me. and not spending enough time in you read them by logging which gaze, adding a spooky level of So a reading log like this would Hemingway’s company? A new passages your eyes dwell on. realism to first-person shooters. really provide new insight, and breed of device could soon be Such detail about what we look Crucially, the low price puts hopefully help me improve,” says logging everything you read, at, whether on a screen or on eye‑tracking systems within Jayson Turner at the University of letting you see for yourself paper, is being made possible by everyone’s reach, says Ralf Lancaster, UK, who has developed whether your reading habits the emergence of gaze-trackers – Biedert, Tobii’s chief interaction a system that lets people drag need revamping. devices that monitor our eyes and drop computer files using “Eye-tracking cameras can The “quantified self” to analyse where we are looking. an eye-tracker. He thinks Kunze’s be built into a headset, movement has spawned wearable Swedish firm Tobii Technology is system will be perfect for quickly gadgets like Fitbit and FuelBand, leading the way in commercialising such as Google Glass, or summarising what fascinates us. clipped to your screen” which monitor physical fitness, the technology. It has developed “It could infer which topics telling you how far you’ve walked a $99 system that uses infrared we find interesting, filtering out or how many calories you’ve cameras trained on the cornea to researcher, based in Stockholm. information we find irrelevant burned. How about logging watch for the eyeball’s movements. Kunze is taking the technology and recording what’s important how much you read on screens These cameras can be built into a in a different direction. In tests on for later recall,” Turner says. instead? Like a Fitbit for the mind. headset, such as Google Glass, or volunteers wearing infrared eyeBiedert says gaze-trackers A “cognitive activity tracker” clipped to the top of a computer tracking glasses, his team found could have a profound impact. developed by Kai Kunze at Osaka screen or tablet. that their software could count “It’s like when the computer Prefecture University in Japan can This year Tobii will launch the number of words read with mouse was invented: controlling tell how many words we read, how its first consumer eye-tracking an accuracy of about 94 per cent, computers with your eyes will often and how fast we read, and system for video games, in and tell how fast you were be supported in more and more even whether we are skim reading conjunction with gaming headset reading, purely by looking at the applications and we cannot tell yet or actually concentrating on the maker SteelSeries of Copenhagen, movement of the eyes. By asking what they will be.” Paul Marks n
Reading the reader
15 February 2014 | NewScientist | 21
Technology
For more technology stories, visit newscientist.com/technology
their volunteers to read different types of materials – novels, fashion magazines, newspapers, research papers and textbooks – they have shown that these various media can be discerned near perfectly from the way readers’ eyes move around their telltale layouts. For example, users would get Fitbit-style metrics on how much time they spend – or waste – reading celebrity gossip when they should be revising. Or, says Kunze, publishers could work out if textbook designs need rethinking by seeing how readers navigate their pages. If the software knows what the document is – a novel being read on a Kindle, say – then more advanced features can be used. “It could lead to adaptive reading materials in which the –What’s catching your eye?– computer recognises I have trouble understanding a particular word and changes the text in real time to give me the definition in the next sentence,” he says. Kunze will reveal more at the Augmented Human meeting in Kobe, Japan, in March. Eye-tracking systems are about to go mainstream – and they could Eye-tracking experts are abuzz. give us some fascinating insights into our reading habits “I find it difficult to be consciously aware of my reading habits and ADDICTED to the Mail Online’s content. It could also generate Denmark. This will allow in-game my ability to absorb the textual infamous celebrity tittle-tattle summaries of documents as characters to react to the player’s information that surrounds me. and not spending enough time in you read them by logging which gaze, adding a spooky level of So a reading log like this would Hemingway’s company? A new passages your eyes dwell on. realism to first-person shooters. really provide new insight, and breed of device could soon be Such detail about what we look Crucially, the low price puts hopefully help me improve,” says logging everything you read, at, whether on a screen or on eye‑tracking systems within Jayson Turner at the University of letting you see for yourself paper, is being made possible by everyone’s reach, says Ralf Lancaster, UK, who has developed whether your reading habits the emergence of gaze-trackers – Biedert, Tobii’s chief interaction a system that lets people drag need revamping. devices that monitor our eyes and drop computer files using “Eye-tracking cameras can The “quantified self” to analyse where we are looking. an eye-tracker. He thinks Kunze’s be built into a headset, movement has spawned wearable Swedish firm Tobii Technology is system will be perfect for quickly gadgets like Fitbit and FuelBand, leading the way in commercialising such as Google Glass, or summarising what fascinates us. clipped to your screen” which monitor physical fitness, the technology. It has developed “It could infer which topics telling you how far you’ve walked a $99 system that uses infrared we find interesting, filtering out or how many calories you’ve cameras trained on the cornea to researcher, based in Stockholm. information we find irrelevant burned. How about logging watch for the eyeball’s movements. Kunze is taking the technology and recording what’s important how much you read on screens These cameras can be built into a in a different direction. In tests on for later recall,” Turner says. instead? Like a Fitbit for the mind. headset, such as Google Glass, or volunteers wearing infrared eyeBiedert says gaze-trackers A “cognitive activity tracker” clipped to the top of a computer tracking glasses, his team found could have a profound impact. developed by Kai Kunze at Osaka screen or tablet. that their software could count “It’s like when the computer Prefecture University in Japan can This year Tobii will launch the number of words read with mouse was invented: controlling tell how many words we read, how its first consumer eye-tracking an accuracy of about 94 per cent, computers with your eyes will often and how fast we read, and system for video games, in and tell how fast you were be supported in more and more even whether we are skim reading conjunction with gaming headset reading, purely by looking at the applications and we cannot tell yet or actually concentrating on the maker SteelSeries of Copenhagen, movement of the eyes. By asking what they will be.” Paul Marks n
Reading the reader
15 February 2014 | NewScientist | 21