The Congruence of Eye Tracking and Augmented Reality
We’ve written about augmented reality in past articles, and while we usually focus on the technological aspects of this new industry, there is another significant discussion about advertising that’s been created as a result of technological innovation.
Eye tracking and augmented reality have essentially created a new advertising sphere, which could be taken advantage of. In recent years, the two technologies have really blossomed, and years of research and technological advances have made this possible.
From the first glimmers of eye tracking as an intriguing new field (Louis Emile Javal who, at the end of the 19th century, discovered that our eyes don’t pan in one continuous motion but scan jerkily across a scene) to recent iris scanning technology in airport security gates, eye tracking has certainly come a long way.
Eye tracking doesn’t need to be based purely in communicative applications, usability testing, or fatigue detection – it can be used to power huge growth in advertising, and more than a few companies are looking into this.
In an article by Thomas Carpenter entitled Eye-Tracking Will Be The New Click-Throughs, Carpenter predicts the convergence of augmented reality products and eye tracking will add a whole “new dimension to the data exhaust.” He points out that eyes have a unique ability to act as a window into a persons’ mind, using the example of poker players wearing glasses to hide their secrets. New products like the windshield equipped with augmented display capabilities recently created by GM have the potential to be advertising goldmines.
Eye tracking is often used for usability and observing how a web users browse the Internet and which ads they see. It has yet to be used in wider, public venues, like billboards for example. Privacy is an issue – in order to keep an eye on who’s looking at your billboard, you need to track the person in the public space and that requires consent. There are also safety concerns that come with augmented reality advertisements that pop up in a passer-by’s field of view. Take the GM windshield for example. Is it a good idea to have the driver’s eyes and attention focus on an augmented display?
The article goes on to say that while the privacy issues are legitimate ones, they can indeed be resolved, at least to make eye tracking capabilities related to advertising an opt-in technology. Perhaps a company or advertiser could offer something of value to the audience in exchange for the data they would get by equipping drivers with eye tracking equipment.
Related articles:
- Eye Tracking: Augmented Reality Apps for the iPhone
- Eye Tracking and Augmented Reality: The Future of Advertising
- Eye Tracking and Augmented Reality: An Interview With Metaio CEO
- A Brief History of Augmented Reality
- Augmented Reality and Pupil Tracking go Hand-in-Hand to Merge the Virtual and Real World
- Sony Aims for Augmented Reality Glasses
- 6 augmented reality apps at your fingertips
- A little touch of augmented reality
- The race for augmented reality glasses