I like downloading some old games from the Xbox Live marketplace. Better graphics sometimes and just fun to relive some childhood memories. Well Asteroids has been revamped to 3D. Check it out after the jump.
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Remember that game we tried out a couple of months ago where you shoot asteroids with your eyes? The company behind the eye-tracking technology just unveiled the next version, which recreates the glorious destruction of atomizing space rocks, only this time in 3D.
Tobii, which developed the original game based on its eye-tracking tech, partnered with a company called SeeFront to create the game, EyeAsteroids 3D. If you recall, the original EyeAsteroids saw a user pilot a “planet,†hurtling through space and constantly bombarded with incoming meteors. The user shoots those rocks just by looking at them, occasionally piloting the planet to avoid radiation fields with head movements.
The 3D version adds depth to the experience, letting you gaze (and shoot at) asteroids in 3D space. Best of all, there’s no need to wear silly glasses since SeeFront’s 3D tech doesn’t require it. It also speaks to the sophistication of the eye-tracking technology, which is able to discern whether you’re focusing on a point in space at, say, 10 inches from your face instead of one further out.
However, when I played the original version of EyeAsteroids, I found that the eye-tracking tech had some difficulty keeping track of my eyes behind my powerful prescription glasses. Tobii has continued to refine the tech, however, recently shrinking the entire sensor unit into a device the size of a thick pen
That’s quite an improvement over previous iteratoins of the tech, which Tobii showed off last year in a rather bulky prototype laptop. While that was just a technology demonstration, now eye-tracking technology will be easier for manufacturers to integrate in products. While the company thinks consumer products are still a couple of years out, commercial solutions could appear as early as this year.
What might some of those solutions be? Tobii says the tech is applicable to devices from lie detectors to medical imaging to air traffic control. However, one of the first applications Tobii reps said they expect to see is in computer-aided design (CAD).
For the rest of us, we’ll have EyeAsteroids and EyeAsteroids 3D to keep us entertained until eye-tracking products start to arrive. You can see Mashable editor-in-chief Lance Ulanoff play the original version at CES in the video below.
What do you think of eye tracking? Promising technology for the future, or doomed to be a niche product?
