Watching You, Watching Me From: Globe and Mail (Canada) - 05/26/2005 - P. B15 By: Grant Buckler Researchers at Queen's University's Human Media Laboratory are developing technology that has a greater awareness of people, according to lab director Roel Vertegaal. Among the projects under development at the lab is the eyeBlog, a system consisting of special glasses equipped with a camera and a sensor that picks up beams of infrared light reflected off a nearby person's eye; the camera starts recording video automatically when the sensor ascertains that the wearer has been maintaining eye contact with someone for over 10 seconds, and this video is fed to a computer. Vertegaal says the video clips produced by eyeBlog need virtually no editing. He says the device could be used in the treatment of autism and for recording person-to-person interactions. Another product from the lab is the eyeBox, a USB digital camera that detects people staring at it, and that can be employed to control programs via head and eye movements. Vertegaal says the device could potentially find use in psychological experiments and safety provisions. Still another Human Media Lab project is the Attentive Cubicle, an overhead camera that monitors the activities of people sitting in adjoining cubicles. The system helps facilitate communication between cubicle dwellers by detecting when two people are facing an opaque cubicle divider, and then turning the partition transparent so they can converse face-to-face. Read the entire article at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050526.gttwtechlab26/BNStory/Technology/ Links: http://hml.queensu.ca/ Eye Contact Sensor Eye Tracker http://hml.queensu.ca/projects.html Attentive User Interface http://www.ccnmag.com/news.php?id=3072 "Attentive" cubicles help workers focus in busy offices http://qnc.queensu.ca/story_loader.php?id=41c71b25bb7d1 http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-12/qu-ch122004.php http://www.physorg.com/news2458.html eyeBlog http://www.hml.queensu.ca/blog/archives/000066.html http://slashdot.org/articles/04/05/16/2340217.shtml?tid=149 Roel Vertegaal http://www.hml.queensu.ca/roel.html