There’s so much you can learn and do with the seemingly insignificant darts and glances of the eyes. Breaking through the prison of silence, eye tracking is changing a variety of industries — and lives,
NEW POSSIBILITIES “Eye tracking has been a fantastic tool to help individuals gain independence and take control over their lives in situations in which they might otherwise not be able to” asserts Dr. Bryn Farnsworth science editor for biometric research company iMotions. From communication to technology control can be asserted by the movement of the eye
A t age 11 Lianna Bryant finally got her voice.
Lianna — who has quadriplegic mixed-type cerebral palsy — can make sounds but she cannot speak and lack of motor control makes it impossible for her to use sign language. Her family had tried various communication tools utilizing head motion which Lianna has some control over but they were exhausting. “I’d have to wipe sweat off her head ” describes her mother Utawna Leap on the website cerebralpalsy.org.
In 2009 however Lianna’s inner thoughts and feelings became more than just a gleam in her eye. Using a specialized device made by the company Tobii Lianna was able to focus her eye movements — something she could entirely control without excessive exertion — to press buttons on a screen that would indicate what she wanted to say. With time she became proficient at using the system not only to communicate verbally but to read her schoolbooks online navigate the web write e-mails respond to the teacher in class and a host of other things that allowed her to keep up with her peers.
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