Controlling a mouse pointer on a laptop can be done in one of three ways depending on your hardware. The most common two ways are with a touchpad or a USB mouse. If you have a ThinkPad then there’s the keyboard nub too. Lenovo has decided to prototype another method, though, using an eye control system from Swedish company Tobii.
Using your eyes as mouse input is not always active to avoid frustration and therefore require some keyboard input to work, but it seems to remain intuitive. Holding down a button shows all the active windows you have open and looking at one while releasing the key gives it the focus. If you want to quickly select an object like an image you can look at it and double-tap the left arrow key to load it.
Lenovo and Tobii have also added a new fold out menu system. It works by sensing when you look just beyond the far left of the screen which activates the menu. Items on that menu can then be focused on with your eyes to either bring up another menu or load that item.
Tobii sees eye tracking as viable in laptops within two years as long as the right hardware partner is chosen. Based on that timescale, and if Lenovo continue to see value in this input method, we could get an eye tracking ThinkPad by 2013.
