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They know when you're looking and what you're looking at.

by JP Bill Jun 13, 2007 11:23PM PDT

It knows you're watching: eye-tracking device developed for billboards, screens

TORONTO (CP) - High-tech billboards and plasma screens are becoming more than just eye-catching - they're developing "eyes" of their own that can detect when people are looking and when they turn away.

This week a Canadian startup company is testing the technology in Kingston, Ont., where a 107-centimetre plasma screen has been outfitted with an eye-tracking sensor and positioned in front of a Tim Hortons restaurant on the Queen's University campus, says creator Roel Vertegaal.

Vertegaal predicts the palm-sized device, called an Eyebox2, could revolutionize the digital-signage industry by letting marketers know just how many people actually look at their ads.

"There's a huge market for knowing whether people are looking at an ad or not," says Vertegaal, an associate professor in human-computing interaction at Queen's.

"It means you can start selling those ads by the eyeball."

Cameras/Google in the streets, now they can tell what you're looking at, check your atm activity. Facial scan at the checkout is a possibility.

Soon there will be no place to get away from it all.

I'm OK up here, At least I think I am.

Perhaps someone is watching, and I don't know.