IndepthDiver
Regular
I was taking a look at NVISO's partners and noticed Tobii was one of them.
Tobii do a lot with eye-tracking and head pose estimation, which is interesting given NVISO's high focus on this area recently.. Tobii have previously developed hardware for gamers which aims to monitor head poses and eye-movements to make games more immersive. I've attached a few screenshots showing this below, though note their EyeTracker 5 is already two years old.
Now they haven't released anything recently but it's very interesting what they talk about. The first article from 2 weeks ago talks about where they are headed and some people they have partnered with. I've attached some really interesting snippets but I recommend reading the entire article.
There are links to both Qualcomm and Sony in it.
Note that they in the section where they talk about gaming, extended realities and driver monitoring, the way the article is worded ("We also see opportunities in automotive") it sounds like they see AR/VR as the bigger or more immediate market. This could be partly because while automotives are heavily regulated (take 2-3+ years to get new safety related products approved while VR isn't regulated. This is why I've been expecting some PC / VR applications released around the end of the year to incorporate Akida.
It's interesting reading that the PSVR 2 wasn't finalised as of a couple months ago. Why were Sony still negotiating eye-tracking equipment for the PSVR 2? It may not only be the worldwide semiconductor shortage that contributed to delaying of the expected launch from late 2022 to early 2023. It's possible that Akida embedded hardware was undergoing rigorous testing, and that getting the contract awarded was subject to this passing testing
Also of interest to the Apple fans here, Tobii has an iPad case which can be used to control the tablet only using eye-gazes. This is medically certified and certified to meet Apple's performance standards
Pure speculation,
DYOR
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www.computerweekly.com
Eye-tracking software has been under development for at least two decades, and one of the leading companies in the domain is a startup success case from Sweden’s Stockholm area. Tobii, which now employs more than 600 people around the world, builds devices that provide attention computing services, of which eye tracking is a subset.
“The challenge with eye tracking isn’t so much getting it to work as it is getting it to work for all people in all types of environment,” says Anand Srivatsa, CEO of Tobii. “For the last 20 years, much of what the company has been doing is looking at how we can take eye-tracking technology and make it robust over a large population. We want to cover people with different ethnicities where the shape of the eye is different, and the colour of the iris is different. We want to cover people with eye conditions, such as lazy eye.
The first area of commercial success for Tobii was in helping companies understand user preferences. Then the company entered another phase, where it marketed medical-grade devices for communication assistance. The technology could be used to give people a voice – someone with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), like the late Stephen Hawking, could use their eyes to access the keyboard.
“Now, for the last five or six years, our technology has become mature enough to be considered for mass-market deployment,” says Srivatsa. “Today we see a lot of opportunity in gaming and in extended realities – virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). We also see opportunities in automotive for driver monitoring systems, healthcare, education and training. At the same time, we continue to market products and services for consumer research and behaviour.”
“When we look at images of people’s faces and their eyes, we are able to measure additional signals, which we call core signals. And then the other thing we’ve done in the last two decades is to combine these core signals into higher-level signals, which we call attention signals.
“We can tell if you’re looking at something like a fixation, or if your eyes are moving rapidly in what is called a saccade. Or, based on pupil dilation, you can understand things about cognitive load. You can detect if somebody is stressed, and things like that.
“These are all signals that, in scientific research or in other applications, can be quite important to measure and understand. In the automotive space, we have attention signals around drowsiness, to help a car determine if you need a coffee break, or whether you are distracted.”
Tobii markets a variety of platforms, some of which are USB peripherals operating at less than 10W. They also have systems that sit within a VR headset in a digital signal processor in the Qualcomm system on chips running the headset. One of the innovations of the last two decades has been to reduce the footprint, both from the sensors needed to capture the pictures of the eye and do the painting that you need, and from the chip that performs the higher-level analysis required by the use case.
Whenever new solutions are found, anyone making eye-tracking platforms must then make those solutions work for a large population and in a variety of environments. “Even if we fix the population problem for a certain type of application, as soon as you miniaturise, you have to get back to that level of population,” says Srivatsa.
“Ideally, you want to say this works 100% of the time on everybody, which is a goal that is probably impossible to attain. But if you want to be in consumer markets, you have to be in the high 90s in percentage of coverage. This means that every time you miniaturise, you have to work the population problem again to get back to the high 90s. Otherwise, you can’t put a product out.”
The number one reason for car accidents is driver error. A worldwide movement, called Vision Zero, is lobbying for legislation in industrialised countries to dramatically reduce the number of fatal accidents. The European Union has mandated that, by 2026, new cars cannot be sold without a camera-based driver-monitoring system to detect whether a driver is drowsy.
Even when self-driving cars become more prevalent, it will still be necessary to make sure the driver is ready to take back control of the vehicle. It will not be until autonomy levels 4 and 5 are reached that the driver will longer be needed. And full autonomy (level 5) is not expected for at least 15 years.
The second killer app is in VR, where eye tracking or attention computing can be used in consumer headsets to enable higher levels of immersiveness. The problem for VR is that it is even more graphically intensive than a big screen because it requires an almost retina-quality image over a very broad field of view. Foveated rendering makes it possible to perceive where users are directing their attention and then render HD for only that part of their view, dramatically reducing the amount of graphics power needed.
“If you look at how our eyes operate, we can only see a very small part in high definition,” says Srivatsa. “The fovea is the part of your retina that can see in full fidelity and has full colour range – and that’s only about 1% of your field of view.
“If I know exactly where you are looking, I can reduce the rendering load to only focus there, and you could actually get back to super low resolution in other parts of the screen. You don’t even perceive colours in some parts of that spectrum, so if you could do it super smart, you can really reduce the load. Sony believes in foveated rendering and they are going to include that in their PSVR 2 headset.”
A third killer app is in AR, where there is a need to contextualise information. If a user is walking up to a bus station and looks at the station through AR-equipped glasses, the device should understand that the user is at a bus stop and tell him or her when the next bus is coming.
Srivatsa thinks the market will change very quickly as people get used to eye tracking and attention computing. User acceptance might follow a similar path to the uptake of voice-controlled systems.
“I was at Intel when we were looking at putting speech into computers in the early 2010s and we gave up because we said it’s too hard,” he says. “Besides, it was too gimmicky. And then we heard about Alexa. We assumed it would be a failure – and personally, I couldn’t think why anybody would want to talk to a device. And now my kids are doing it all the time.
“I expect eye tracking – and the broader attention computing – to take a similar path, becoming a part of everyday life before we know it.”
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Tobii AB, the global leader in eye tracking and pioneer of attention computing, announces it is currently in negotiation with Sony Interactive Entertainment (“SIE”) be the eye tracking technology provider in SIE’s new VR headset, PlayStation VR2 (PS VR2).
Tobii is not commenting on the financial impact of the deal at this time as negotiations are ongoing.
This information is information Tobii AB (publ) is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out below, on February 7, 2022, at 7:30 a.m. CET.
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www.tomsguide.com
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techcrunch.com
Tobii is bringing its eye-tracking tech to the iPad with TD Pilot, a case meant to turn Apple’s tablet into a powerful all-in-one tool for people with physical impairments. Equipped with TD Pilot, users can launch and use apps, type quickly and speak with a synthetic voice using nothing but their gaze.
IPadOS 15 brought native integration of eye-tracking hardware to these popular devices, and Tobii is probably the most familiar name in that space. I’ve checked out plenty of their devices, both all-in-one slates and standalone peripherals for PCs, and they’ve always worked very well. But because of limitations on Apple’s side, eye-tracking has primarily been on Windows machines. I wouldn’t mind, myself, but some people prefer iOS and will now have the same access opportunity on that platform.
TD Pilot is a large case that includes the eye-tracking gear up front (which is actually remarkably small — a little strip with cameras built in), and behind is not only a set of stereo speakers but a small screen for displaying text. So the device’s user can communicate via text or audio, sending either though Tobii’s own TD Talk text-to-speech app or another of their choice. (Not just speech — they can be the DJ too if they want.)
The device comes with access to the rest of Tobii’s little suite of apps as well, for configuration, symbol-based communication and all the rest.
“It is medically certified, and has been certified to meet Apple performance standards,” said Tobii Dynavox CEO Fredrik Ruben. “With that, users know that they can rely on market-leading technology that will continue to be updated and supported, and they can avoid insecure ‘one-time hacks’ that may be developed for popular technologies.” This is no doubt a thinly veiled reference to other eye-tracking solutions for earlier versions of the OS that didn’t support the feature natively.
Tobii’s eye-tracking devices can be purchased by anyone, but they’re often, as the company explained, prescribed by a person’s doctor or therapist as part of a larger set of solutions catering to their individual needs. As such, it is frequently covered by insurance, but of course your mileage may vary. I asked for a specific cost but Tobii did not provide one.
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gaming.tobii.com
Tobii do a lot with eye-tracking and head pose estimation, which is interesting given NVISO's high focus on this area recently.. Tobii have previously developed hardware for gamers which aims to monitor head poses and eye-movements to make games more immersive. I've attached a few screenshots showing this below, though note their EyeTracker 5 is already two years old.
Now they haven't released anything recently but it's very interesting what they talk about. The first article from 2 weeks ago talks about where they are headed and some people they have partnered with. I've attached some really interesting snippets but I recommend reading the entire article.
There are links to both Qualcomm and Sony in it.
Note that they in the section where they talk about gaming, extended realities and driver monitoring, the way the article is worded ("We also see opportunities in automotive") it sounds like they see AR/VR as the bigger or more immediate market. This could be partly because while automotives are heavily regulated (take 2-3+ years to get new safety related products approved while VR isn't regulated. This is why I've been expecting some PC / VR applications released around the end of the year to incorporate Akida.
It's interesting reading that the PSVR 2 wasn't finalised as of a couple months ago. Why were Sony still negotiating eye-tracking equipment for the PSVR 2? It may not only be the worldwide semiconductor shortage that contributed to delaying of the expected launch from late 2022 to early 2023. It's possible that Akida embedded hardware was undergoing rigorous testing, and that getting the contract awarded was subject to this passing testing
Also of interest to the Apple fans here, Tobii has an iPad case which can be used to control the tablet only using eye-gazes. This is medically certified and certified to meet Apple's performance standards
Pure speculation,
DYOR
--------------------------------------------------------------
Swedish entrepreneurs capture the world’s attention with eye-tracking technology | Computer Weekly
A growing number of killer apps are driving the uptake of eye-tracking systems – and Sweden is positioned to play a leading role.
Eye-tracking software has been under development for at least two decades, and one of the leading companies in the domain is a startup success case from Sweden’s Stockholm area. Tobii, which now employs more than 600 people around the world, builds devices that provide attention computing services, of which eye tracking is a subset.
“The challenge with eye tracking isn’t so much getting it to work as it is getting it to work for all people in all types of environment,” says Anand Srivatsa, CEO of Tobii. “For the last 20 years, much of what the company has been doing is looking at how we can take eye-tracking technology and make it robust over a large population. We want to cover people with different ethnicities where the shape of the eye is different, and the colour of the iris is different. We want to cover people with eye conditions, such as lazy eye.
The first area of commercial success for Tobii was in helping companies understand user preferences. Then the company entered another phase, where it marketed medical-grade devices for communication assistance. The technology could be used to give people a voice – someone with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), like the late Stephen Hawking, could use their eyes to access the keyboard.
“Now, for the last five or six years, our technology has become mature enough to be considered for mass-market deployment,” says Srivatsa. “Today we see a lot of opportunity in gaming and in extended realities – virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). We also see opportunities in automotive for driver monitoring systems, healthcare, education and training. At the same time, we continue to market products and services for consumer research and behaviour.”
“When we look at images of people’s faces and their eyes, we are able to measure additional signals, which we call core signals. And then the other thing we’ve done in the last two decades is to combine these core signals into higher-level signals, which we call attention signals.
“We can tell if you’re looking at something like a fixation, or if your eyes are moving rapidly in what is called a saccade. Or, based on pupil dilation, you can understand things about cognitive load. You can detect if somebody is stressed, and things like that.
“These are all signals that, in scientific research or in other applications, can be quite important to measure and understand. In the automotive space, we have attention signals around drowsiness, to help a car determine if you need a coffee break, or whether you are distracted.”
Tobii markets a variety of platforms, some of which are USB peripherals operating at less than 10W. They also have systems that sit within a VR headset in a digital signal processor in the Qualcomm system on chips running the headset. One of the innovations of the last two decades has been to reduce the footprint, both from the sensors needed to capture the pictures of the eye and do the painting that you need, and from the chip that performs the higher-level analysis required by the use case.
Whenever new solutions are found, anyone making eye-tracking platforms must then make those solutions work for a large population and in a variety of environments. “Even if we fix the population problem for a certain type of application, as soon as you miniaturise, you have to get back to that level of population,” says Srivatsa.
“Ideally, you want to say this works 100% of the time on everybody, which is a goal that is probably impossible to attain. But if you want to be in consumer markets, you have to be in the high 90s in percentage of coverage. This means that every time you miniaturise, you have to work the population problem again to get back to the high 90s. Otherwise, you can’t put a product out.”
Killer apps for eye tracking and attention computing
Smaller and faster processors, along with smarter software, have given rise to new solutions that can solve a variety of problems in different industries. Several killer apps are on the horizon, and one of the more obvious cases is automotive driver monitoring.The number one reason for car accidents is driver error. A worldwide movement, called Vision Zero, is lobbying for legislation in industrialised countries to dramatically reduce the number of fatal accidents. The European Union has mandated that, by 2026, new cars cannot be sold without a camera-based driver-monitoring system to detect whether a driver is drowsy.
Even when self-driving cars become more prevalent, it will still be necessary to make sure the driver is ready to take back control of the vehicle. It will not be until autonomy levels 4 and 5 are reached that the driver will longer be needed. And full autonomy (level 5) is not expected for at least 15 years.
The second killer app is in VR, where eye tracking or attention computing can be used in consumer headsets to enable higher levels of immersiveness. The problem for VR is that it is even more graphically intensive than a big screen because it requires an almost retina-quality image over a very broad field of view. Foveated rendering makes it possible to perceive where users are directing their attention and then render HD for only that part of their view, dramatically reducing the amount of graphics power needed.
“If you look at how our eyes operate, we can only see a very small part in high definition,” says Srivatsa. “The fovea is the part of your retina that can see in full fidelity and has full colour range – and that’s only about 1% of your field of view.
“If I know exactly where you are looking, I can reduce the rendering load to only focus there, and you could actually get back to super low resolution in other parts of the screen. You don’t even perceive colours in some parts of that spectrum, so if you could do it super smart, you can really reduce the load. Sony believes in foveated rendering and they are going to include that in their PSVR 2 headset.”
A third killer app is in AR, where there is a need to contextualise information. If a user is walking up to a bus station and looks at the station through AR-equipped glasses, the device should understand that the user is at a bus stop and tell him or her when the next bus is coming.
Srivatsa thinks the market will change very quickly as people get used to eye tracking and attention computing. User acceptance might follow a similar path to the uptake of voice-controlled systems.
“I was at Intel when we were looking at putting speech into computers in the early 2010s and we gave up because we said it’s too hard,” he says. “Besides, it was too gimmicky. And then we heard about Alexa. We assumed it would be a failure – and personally, I couldn’t think why anybody would want to talk to a device. And now my kids are doing it all the time.
“I expect eye tracking – and the broader attention computing – to take a similar path, becoming a part of everyday life before we know it.”
---------------------------------------------------------------
Tobii AB, the global leader in eye tracking and pioneer of attention computing, announces it is currently in negotiation with Sony Interactive Entertainment (“SIE”) be the eye tracking technology provider in SIE’s new VR headset, PlayStation VR2 (PS VR2).
Tobii is not commenting on the financial impact of the deal at this time as negotiations are ongoing.
This information is information Tobii AB (publ) is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out below, on February 7, 2022, at 7:30 a.m. CET.
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PSVR 2: Release date, price, specs, games and more
Sony's PSVR 2 is a stellar VR headset for the PS5
www.tomsguide.com
PSVR 2 potential release date
The latest release date rumor has the PSVR 2 tipped for a 2023 launch, meaning the expected arrival of 2022 may not happen.------------------------------------------------------------------
Tobii's TD Pilot brings gaze-based typing, text-to-speech and app navigation to iPad | TechCrunch
Tobii is bringing its eye-tracking tech to the iPad with TD Pilot, a case meant to turn Apple's tablet into a powerful all-in-one tool for people with
techcrunch.com
Tobii is bringing its eye-tracking tech to the iPad with TD Pilot, a case meant to turn Apple’s tablet into a powerful all-in-one tool for people with physical impairments. Equipped with TD Pilot, users can launch and use apps, type quickly and speak with a synthetic voice using nothing but their gaze.
IPadOS 15 brought native integration of eye-tracking hardware to these popular devices, and Tobii is probably the most familiar name in that space. I’ve checked out plenty of their devices, both all-in-one slates and standalone peripherals for PCs, and they’ve always worked very well. But because of limitations on Apple’s side, eye-tracking has primarily been on Windows machines. I wouldn’t mind, myself, but some people prefer iOS and will now have the same access opportunity on that platform.
TD Pilot is a large case that includes the eye-tracking gear up front (which is actually remarkably small — a little strip with cameras built in), and behind is not only a set of stereo speakers but a small screen for displaying text. So the device’s user can communicate via text or audio, sending either though Tobii’s own TD Talk text-to-speech app or another of their choice. (Not just speech — they can be the DJ too if they want.)
The device comes with access to the rest of Tobii’s little suite of apps as well, for configuration, symbol-based communication and all the rest.
“It is medically certified, and has been certified to meet Apple performance standards,” said Tobii Dynavox CEO Fredrik Ruben. “With that, users know that they can rely on market-leading technology that will continue to be updated and supported, and they can avoid insecure ‘one-time hacks’ that may be developed for popular technologies.” This is no doubt a thinly veiled reference to other eye-tracking solutions for earlier versions of the OS that didn’t support the feature natively.
Tobii’s eye-tracking devices can be purchased by anyone, but they’re often, as the company explained, prescribed by a person’s doctor or therapist as part of a larger set of solutions catering to their individual needs. As such, it is frequently covered by insurance, but of course your mileage may vary. I asked for a specific cost but Tobii did not provide one.
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Tobii Eye Tracker 5 | Next Generation of Head and Eye Tracking
The only device capable of tracking both head and eye movements for a more immersive gaming experience, content creation and simulation gaming.
gaming.tobii.com
