[games_access] Tobii and SteelSeries team up to launch eye-tracking game controller (Barrie Ellis)

Mon Jan 6 10:50:21 EST 2014

Ah, I remember now. Hoped they might have overcome it, but it's not to be it seems. Seen this kind of thing happen several times in the past. What a shame. I do wonder who it was. Seems there's lots of big companies with eye-tracking patents out there. I'm no legal expert, but why not name the group threatening legal action?

Maybe they had nothing to do with it, but I would love to see Sony doing something positive for accessibility. I can't recommend the PS4 at all at the moment due to its poor alternative controller access (I know - early days). Enabling USB connected controllers to play games would be a great start so it could at least catch up with Xbox One with the Cronus Max device and (hopefully Xim 4 too).

Barrie

From: Ian Hamilton 
Sent: Monday, January 06, 2014 3:36 PM
To: games_access at igda.org 
Subject: Re: [games_access] Tobii and SteelSeries team up to launch eye-tracking game controller (Barrie Ellis)

Yep that's exactly what happened: 

"Eye tracking for research has been around for a decades, but sensors and computing power were too expensive to make it available for "home use".

When we started the eyeCharm project at Kickstarter, we set out to make eye tracking affordable.

Affordable to the creative ones wanting to develop their own visions;
affordable to the visionaries wanting interact with their computers in a whole new way;
and affordable for those, whose only way it is to interact with a computer.

When we reached our funding goal, we were honored by your backing and enthusiastically jumped to work making good progress.

Maybe too good...

A company holding patents in eye tracking, threw a roadblock into our way by claiming, that we might be infringing a patent. They asked us to stop the eyeCharm or negotiate a license price with them - Adding such a license price would have effectively made it impossible for us to deliver the eyeCharm to you.

We are convinced, that the patent in question should not have been granted in the first place and we are most probably not even infringing it, but in spite of our conviction, the only way to resolve this would be to go for litigation.

We can not afford to even begin a patent litigation especially with the patent in question being a US patent."

Apparently Sony has a patent on combining eye tracking with motion detecting devices, perhaps that's who killed it? Real shame, and not very nice for the backers that they're not offering any refunds to either. The discount price that they've negotiated with Tobii is something at least, but that only helps backers who wanted a cheap device themselves, it doesn't really help the backers who backed because they wanted to see cheap devices on the open market.

> From: games_access-request at igda.org
> Subject: games_access Digest, Vol 122, Issue 2
> To: games_access at igda.org
> Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 10:00:04 -0500
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> Today's Topics:
> 
> 1. Re: Tobii and SteelSeries team up to launch eye-trackinggame
> controller (Barrie Ellis)
> 2. Re: Tobii and SteelSeries team up to launch eye-trackinggame
> controller (Thomas Westin)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 09:53:20 -0000
> From: "Barrie Ellis" <oneswitch at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [games_access] Tobii and SteelSeries team up to launch
> eye-trackinggame controller
> To: "IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List"
> <games_access at igda.org>
> Message-ID: <82FF7B05B8EB49C6B8BA5F9EE3CDBC70 at OneSwitchPC>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> Hmm... Maybe this is what is needed to get the price of eye-trackers down and into the mainstream, but it doesn't look like it will do anything for game accessibility straight away. It could be just be another set of controls to add to others that are used already. It could make games even less accessible to many. I guess a few people will make interesting gaze-only games which would be great, but if it uses closed proprietary interface/software that will be bad news.
> 
> I haven't read anything saying it can be used as a mouse emulator over Win 8 from the go.
> 
> I do wonder what happened to this:
> 
> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/4tiitoo/nuia-eyecharm-kinect-to-eye-tracking/ - the plan was for a $60 clip-on device and software to complement the now very cheap to buy Kinect for Xbox 360. What a shame that fell through. I'm guessing a big name or two felt threatened by it and got legal, but I could be wrong.
> 
> Affordable off-the-shelf eye-gaze control over the mouse seems not too far away now, but it's not here yet so far as I can see.
> 
> Barrie
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From: Thomas Westin 
> Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2014 1:07 AM
> To: IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List 
> Subject: [games_access] Tobii and SteelSeries team up to launch eye-trackinggame controller
> 
> 
> http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/03/tobii-steelseries-eye-tracking-game-accessory/
> 
> Download information for Engadget at http://www.engadget.com/apps/
> 
> 
> Kind regards,
> Thomas
> 
> (Sent from my mobile)
> _______________________________________________
> games_access mailing list
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> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 11:39:36 +0100
> From: Thomas Westin <thomas at westin.nu>
> Subject: Re: [games_access] Tobii and SteelSeries team up to launch
> eye-trackinggame controller
> To: Barrie Ellis <oneswitch at gmail.com>, IGDA Games Accessibility SIG
> Mailing List <games_access at igda.org>
> Message-ID: <880A27C8-1233-46ED-8B42-E104C3F88E97 at westin.nu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
> 
> Hi Barrie,
> 
> Yes I agree, it may make games more inaccessible due to poor design, but then again that is true of any solution. However, I think that if eye-tracking is catching on as a mainstream hardware, it will be possible to have game developers implementing support for it (due to return on investment). Tobii tech is used for a wide range of applications and having mouse control should definitely be included in this as well. I can?t imagine why they would not. Let?s wait and see more details during CES (starting today!). 
> 
> Best regards,
> Thomas
> 
> 6Jan 2014 kl. 10:53 skrev Barrie Ellis <oneswitch at gmail.com>:
> 
> > Hmm... Maybe this is what is needed to get the price of eye-trackers down and into the mainstream, but it doesn't look like it will do anything for game accessibility straight away. It could be just be another set of controls to add to others that are used already. It could make games even less accessible to many. I guess a few people will make interesting gaze-only games which would be great, but if it uses closed proprietary interface/software that will be bad news.
> > 
> > I haven't read anything saying it can be used as a mouse emulator over Win 8 from the go.
> > 
> > I do wonder what happened to this:
> > 
> > http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/4tiitoo/nuia-eyecharm-kinect-to-eye-tracking/ - the plan was for a $60 clip-on device and software to complement the now very cheap to buy Kinect for Xbox 360. What a shame that fell through. I'm guessing a big name or two felt threatened by it and got legal, but I could be wrong.
> > 
> > Affordable off-the-shelf eye-gaze control over the mouse seems not too far away now, but it's not here yet so far as I can see.
> > 
> > Barrie
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > From: Thomas Westin
> > Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2014 1:07 AM
> > To: IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List
> > Subject: [games_access] Tobii and SteelSeries team up to launch eye-trackinggame controller
> > 
> > http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/03/tobii-steelseries-eye-tracking-game-accessory/
> > 
> > Download information for Engadget at http://www.engadget.com/apps/
> > 
> > 
> > Kind regards,
> > Thomas
> > 
> > (Sent from my mobile)
> > _______________________________________________
> > games_access mailing list
> > games_access at igda.org
> > http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access
> > The main SIG website page is http://igda-gasig.org
> > _______________________________________________
> > games_access mailing list
> > games_access at igda.org
> > http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access
> > The main SIG website page is http://igda-gasig.org
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