VIDEO: Tobii creates first eye controlled arcade game Eye Asteroids

Yesterday Shiny Shiny headed down to London’s Trocadero arcade with our sister site Tech Digest to try out the world’s first eye-controlled arcade game, Eye Asteroids.

Basically you stand in front of the very normal looking retro arcade game and after a quick calibration test you shoot the asteroids that threaten to destroy your planet just by looking at them. We know, we know, it doesn’t sound real but it is and it’s surprisingly accurate too.

The game works by using an infra-red sensor just below the screen to track the reflections on the surface of your eye, as well as the minute changes in pupil size, to control the direction of your laser blasts.

Eye Asteroids is a game in its own right too, not just some rubbish planet moving around with no purpose. Although we were told you could score more than 1000 points by shooting all the asteroids and we got up to around 60. Oh well…

Eye Asteroids was created by Tobii, a company which specialises in developing eye-tracking solutions. Despite the fact this technology sounds like something from a sci-fi film, Anders Olsson from Tobii told us that this kind of super accurate and lightning fast eye-tracking could soon play an integral role in the way we use our computers and gaming consoles. The technology behind Eye Asteroids isn’t just revolutionary for gaming either, but also has obvious applications for those living with disabilities.

Tobii Eye Asteroids is available for purchase by companies and individuals, but is limited to a production run of just 50 units, available for $15,000 each. Now that’d be one big Christmas present.

Tobii’s Anders Olsson talks Gerald from Tech Digest through the technology, and his hopes for the future of eye-controlled gaming, in the video above.