Eye-Tracking Technology for the Masses

In 1999, John Elvesjö, a 21-year-old Swedish engineering student, was experimenting with an infrared sensor to track movement. He had gotten the device to follow two tossed krona coins when he turned it around to look at it—and noticed something surprising. The sensor began following the movement of his eyes.

That discovery could change the way we interact with computers. Elvesjö, now 33, is co-founder of Tobii Technology, a company in Stockholm that's developing the first mass-market eye-tracking device. It will let users do many of the things they now do with a mouse, just by looking at the screen. Stare at a folder to open it. Read to the bottom of a page of an e-mail, and the program skips to the next. Aim your video-game laser cannon without twitching your trigger finger. The device directs harmless infrared light, similar to a TV remote control's, at the user's eyes and captures reflections that shift with the user's gaze. Software pinpoints where the user is looking within 2 millimeters.