[News] Microsoft Adding Eye Control Capabilities to Windows, Improve Accessibility

[StyM]

https://www.techpowerup.com/235743/m...-accessibility

People with disabilities typically find themselves in an uphill battle in a world that simply isn't geared for them. In everything, the economies of scale dominate, the cost/benefit ratios are weighed... And even though the disabled segment of the population is a significant one, measures to cope with their difficulties are seldom implemented due to that same economic cost/benefit ratio - though this has been steadily improving over the years (at great credit for humanity, I might say.)

Microsoft has now announced that it has partnered with Tobii (best known for their gaming-oriented eye-tracking products), in a bid to increase accessibility in its Windows OS. The work has gone towards implementing eye-tracking technology that can be used by people with motor disabilities to control a mice and keyboard on-screen. Available in the latest Insider Preview builds, Eye Control currently requires a specific piece of Tobii hardware (like the Tobii 4C, though support will definitely extend to other Tobii products in time), which unlocks access to the Windows operating system to be able to do the tasks one could previously accomplish with a physical mouse and keyboard.

[AliG]

As someone who works on biometrics: creepy.

[Sparky]

Eye tracking cameras work off of eye position and (often times) IR lighting. Not going to grab much biometric data from that.

Would be good if they supported other trackers than just one company's tracker. Makes sense to start with one, but hopefully they add others as they go. There's a good half dozen different ones out there.

[AliG]

Eye tracking cameras work off of eye position and (often times) IR lighting. Not going to grab much biometric data from that.

Would be good if they supported other trackers than just one company's tracker. Makes sense to start with one, but hopefully they add others as they go. There's a good half dozen different ones out there.

That's not the problem. The problem is most of these gesture tracking features are always scanning. A lot of customers turn them on, thinking they're cool, then just forget about it. It would be very easy for a hacker to acquire that data and then download videos of you doing activity you probably wouldn't want to share.

[Sparky]

People need to pay attention and be responsible for their stuff and what they're doing. Guess I'm just a big grump.

An eye tracker is pretty specific though - they don't typically have a regular video stream. But I've never played with Tobii's camera so I can't say for sure. The ones I have worked with have a very limited view distance so anything past 3-4 feet is not visible by the camera in most cases, or if it is, it is very blurry as the focal range is only within a couple feet.

[AliG]

Sure, the calibration is typically for someone's face being 3 feet away. Having said that, the calibration can also be done digitally if it's a high resolution lens.

You never know. I'm just really not a fan of any sensor that is constantly searching for use inputs. Even if you trust the original coder (like Google's "OK Google" prompt), who knows what someone with malicious intent can do with the data.