Text 2.0 Reads Your Eyes As You Read It

Ordinarily the idea of someone or something monitoring your eyes is a pretty off-putting one. Most likely it’s a police interrogator or a parent scolding you after curfew. New eye-tracking technology called “Text 2.0″, however, is pretty friggin’ cool. It’s being developed by the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence.

The basis of Text 2.0 is in eye-tracking technology that allows it to follow your eyes and react accordingly. For instance, if you stare dumbfounded at a big, long word for several seconds, the system could activate a definition automatically. It could also help you find your place, skim through words and presumably turn pages without ever needing to touch the device. It sounds to be in the rough stages of development.

Text 2.0 could make the e-readers and tablets of the future more intuitive and, well, futuristic. According to Wired’s article, Apple has already made several moves that indicate that Text 2.0 could be a part of iPad 2.0, including purchasing eye-tracking hardware and applying for a patent for “gaze vector” software, which rearranges content based on where a user is looking.

There’s still something a little creepy about software reading my eyeballs, and thinking about it makes them ache just a little, but this sounds like some pretty cool tech that could be down the line.

Still confused? Take a look at the video below for a better idea of how this could work. [via Wired]