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Eye Tribe shows off working eye-tracking on a mobile phone

Earlier demos were done on Android tablets, but the software company showed off a proof of concept using a modified Samsung Galaxy Note II to demo its eye-tracking software at Showstoppers.

Aloysius Low Senior Editor
Aloysius Low is a Senior Editor at CNET covering mobile and Asia. Based in Singapore, he loves playing Dota 2 when he can spare the time and is also the owner-minion of two adorable cats.
Aloysius Low

In the future, Eye Tribe's technology will work on mobile phones using this dongle. Aloysius Low/CNET

BARCELONA, Spain--Having recently announced an Android SDK for its Eye Tribe Tracker, the company also showed off how its eye-tracking software would work on a mobile phone without using said Tracker.

Eye Tribe's Anders Bo Pedersen, mobile lead and partner, gave us a demo proof of concept by using a modified Samsung Galaxy Note II with the infrared filter on its front camera removed and an LED emitter dongle that bounces the light off your eyes to the camera to track your eye movement.

While the software was still buggy and required a fixed distance from the smartphone, Bo Pedersen managed to slice and dice fruits using his eye movements on the Fruit Ninja app.

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And if you're wondering just how soon you'd be able to get this technology into your smartphone, Bo Pedersen was pretty optimistic, mentioning that the sensors were being developed and would be available as early as Q4 this year, and that OEM vendors could likely add this sensor to their handsets for just five dollars.

This sounds like an exciting concept, and we're definitely keeping an eye on the company.