News

Making SMART TVs Smarter with Mirametrix’ Eye Tracking Technology

November 15th, 2011

Mirametrix’ eye tracking technology & analytics empowers SMART TVs’ advertisers and content publishers

PR-WEB Montreal, Canada Nov 16 2011: Mirametrix Canada, a specialist in eye tracking technologies announced today the world’s first successful integration pilot of consumer eye gaze tracking technology and analytics suite with a commercial SMART TV.

Mirametrix’ consumer eye gaze solution allows users to interact with on-screen or real world off-screen objects using their eyes without the need for head-mounted equipment or expensive add-on hardware.

The controls of a commercial SMART TV were modified to augment body gesture with long-range, contact-free, eye gaze tracking technology developed by Mirametrix. Using the new controls, Mirametrix tested a number of applications benefiting from such improved natural interaction including a redesigned Netflix movie selection menu controlled by eye gaze and gestures . Moreover, the advertisement display and content suggestion engines were integrated with Mirametrix’ eye gaze tracking analytics suite which accurately predicts the user’s preferences and current state of mind by monitoring its eye gaze over time.

“Eye tracking technology has long been restricted to niche applications such as basic research and assistive technology fields due to its traditionally expensive hardware architecture and complex setup procedure,” states Dr. Craig Hennessey, CTO & Founder of Mirametrix, “Our technology enables affordable, non-contact, consumer eye gaze applications for the living-room environment. Our instant-setup system also allows for free-head motion, and natural body movement.We are confident that Mirametrix consumer eye gaze technology will significantly improve the overall experience with the next generation of SMART TVs.”

“Mirametrix consumer eye gaze technology has the potential to significantly improve media consumption and interaction in SMART TVs,” explained Dr. Helge Seetzen, CEO of Mirametrix. “Imagine sitting in front of your TV and it knows who you are and what you want. You are able to select content through your hand movement and eye gaze. The TV serves you content based on your previous visual interest, and optimizes the appearance of that content to maximize your personal viewing experience. When you are done, you switch off the TV by telling it to “turn off” while looking at it.”

About Mirametrix

Mirametrix is focused on bringing gaze-based human computer interaction to the consumer environment. Mirametrix aggregates intellectual property, innovators and developers from academic and industrial sources to create state-of-the-art solutions in eye tracking and related fields, including gaze based analytics, and consumer gaze applications.

Mirametrix leadership team has over a decade of experience in the field of eye tracking, with an additional 30 years of experience in related fields including perception-based video technology and image processing.

Mirametrix joined the TandemLaunch Technologies acceleration program in early 2011. The company is now based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Mirametrix sells its portable S2 Eye Tracker System internationally, with customers in academic research, market research, usability, education and game design.

http://www.mirametrix.com/

About TandemLaunch Technologies Inc.

TandemLaunch Technologies, a Montreal-based company, bridges the technology transfer gap by developing early-stage multimedia university inventions into risk-reduced consumer technologies suitable for industrial commercialization. Our acceleration programs not only provide significant funding to high-potential university inventors and entrepreneurs, but also offer cost-effective business and development expertise, as well as close industry connections.

http://www.tandemlaunchtech.com/

Mirametrix Launches New Software Release

October 31st, 2011

Montreal, Canada – Mirametrix, a specialist in commercial eye tracking solutions has today launched a new release of its S2 slim, lightweight, commercial eye tracker with improved software features.

Mirametrix S2 new release will further support the use of affordable and portable desktop eye tracking technology into new applications such as marketing research, and usability

Amineh Younes, Product Manager Mirametrix S2 Eye Tracker product line

“Mirametrix S2 eye trackers have experienced high demand and very positive reviews from our customers because of their very slim and lightweight form factors combined with high-performance, ease-of-use and open architecture allowing rapid development of software applications and export of data into other applications”, Said Amineh Younes, product manager of Mirametrix S2 Eye Tracker product line. “We have worked with our customers to bring a number of new features into our standard software. The S2 new release will further support the use of affordable and portable desktop eye tracking technology into new applications such as marketing research, and usability”

Mirametrix new open software-based novel architecture enables high-performance yet affordable, slim and lightweight eye tracking solutions

Craig Hennessey, CTO & Founder of Mirametrix

Eye tracking technology has long been restricted to niche applications such as basic research and assistive technology fields due to its traditionally expensive hardware architecture and complex setup procedure,” stated Dr. Craig Hennessey, CTO & Founder of Mirametrix, “Our new open software-based novel architecture enables high-performance and compact yet affordable eye tracking solutions. The new release streghtens the robustness, reliability, portability and usability aspects of Mirametrix S2 desktop Eye Tracker allowing it to be used in many new applications.”

To find out more about the new release of the S2 eye-trackers, please visit the following URL:

http://mirametrix.com/news2release/

Mirametrix Introduces Next-Generation Eye-Tracking in Living-Room Environments

October 7th, 2011

Mirametrix, a specialist in consumer eye tracking technology, is redefining the way you interact with technology in your living room.
Mirametrix’ consumer eye gaze solution allows users to interact with virtual or real world objects using their eyes without the need for head-mounted equipment or expensive add-on hardware. The innovations include a remote-free, eye gaze controlled TV and gaze aware peripheral control for devices such as PVRs and stereos as well as room illumination. Integrating eye gaze with gesture tracking, Mirametrix has also created the world’s first context aware 3D game controlled both by body gestures and eye gaze.

SEOMoz teams up with Mirametrix to tell 5 tales of pizza

October 6th, 2011

Mirametrix has teamed up with the folks at SEOmoz to collect some interesting eye-tracking data with the S2 Eyetracker. You can check out Pete Myer’s intriguing post where he uses pizza to check the effectiveness of different Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs)

Eye-Tracking Google SERPs – 5 Tales of Pizza

Mirametrix Sponsors 1st International Workshop on Pervasive Eye Tracking and Mobile Eye-Based Interaction

July 31st, 2011

Mirametrix is very pleased to be participating as a sponsor for PETMEI 2011 – the 1st International Workshop on Pervasive Eye Tracking and Mobile Eye-Based Interaction.

The event is being held on September 18th in conjunction with the 13th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2011) in Beijing, China.

It looks like PETMEI 2011 will be a great event. The keynote is Jeff B. Pelz, Full Professor, Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester. He’ll be speaking about Semantic Analysis of Mobile Eye Tracking Data.

Some of the other talks and sessions include:

Implementing Gaze Control for Peripheral Devices (Jurek Breuninger, Christian Lange and Klaus Bengler)
Human Factor Affects Eye Movement Pattern during Riding Motorcycle on the Mountain (Haiwei Dong and Zhiwei Luo)
Eye Tracking Over Small and Large Shopping Displays (Chip Tonkin, Andrew Duchowski, Joshua Kahue, Paul Schiffgens and Frank Rischner)
Combining Gaze with Manual Interaction to Extend Physical Reach (Jayson Turner, Andreas Bulling and Hans Gellersen)

Unfortunately we won’t be in attendance at the event, but we’re hoping there will be at least one S2 Eye Tracker at the event for people to look at and test out.

Lose the Remote: Wanna buy an affordable eye-tracking camera?

July 18th, 2011

Mirametrix was featured in the Montreal Gazette today. Here’s a copy of the story (along with a downloadable PDF version):

Let’s face it: holding a remote control to change channels on your television is so last century.

The folks at Mirametrix Inc. foresee a day in the near future when you’ll be able to control your television, and even your light switch, just by looking at it.

They have developed an affordable eye-tracking camera that can be incorporated into everyday computers and televisions.

The inventor of the technology and Mirametrix’s chief technology officer, Craig Hennessey, founded the company in 2008 after completing a doctorate at the University of British Columbia, mostly to sell the technology to academic and marketing researchers.

“I noticed that there was a need for affordable eye-trackers,” said Hennessey, who developed the technology during his PhD research.

The company started selling the S2 eye tracker in March, targeting market research firms and academics. It sells for $5,000 compared with similar products that sell for $30,000.

The camera looks like a small black bar that can be mounted above or below a computer screen. It uses low-level infrared LED lights to illuminate the eyes, much like a camera flash would cause red eye. The lights emit similar radiation to a television remote control. The camera then picks up the pupils that have been illuminated and tracks where they are looking. Hennessey said the process simplifies the hardware required for most standard eye trackers.

“We were able to lower the cost on the hardware side, and compensate with more advanced software,” Hennessey said from the company’s office on Victoria Ave. in lower Westmount.

Using a computer, he demonstrated how the tracker was able to draw lines on the screen where a user was looking. Using data from several different trials, he showed the different eye movements layered on top of each other when watching the movie Transformers II, to see how effective product placement ads were.

“You see in the corner that there’s a Cisco router, but only a few of the lines are on it, which means only a few people noticed that product,” Hennessey said, pointing to the screen.

Hennessey said the technology can be taken further to target ads to what people are viewing at any given moment. He showed a mock-up of the New York Times website that changed the advertisements on screen based on where a user was looking. When the reader looked at a news article about headaches, the site displayed an ad for Advil. Then when the viewer looked at a news article about finance, an ad for Deutsche Bank was displayed.

While the company is already making a small profit selling its product to researchers, Hennessey dreams of a day when eye-tracking technology is incorporated into every television screen. That’s why in February he sold part of his company to Helge Seetzen, who runs a technology accelerator for startup companies called TandemLaunch Technologies.

The fund is currently financing five companies that all work out of the same office on the second floor of an office building near the Victoria train station. Seetzen, who is Mirametrix’s CEO, is preparing the mainstream product, which is currently being tested in the company’s lab. It allows a user to look to the top right of a television screen and control the volume, and channel settings. Unlike the professional product, the mainstream camera can track a user’s eye movements wherever they are in a room. It can also detect depth.

“So if you look at a lamp in your room that is behind the television and say turn off that lamp, it will know which lamp you are talking about,” Seetzen said.

Seetzen has been approaching major electronics and video game manufacturers such as Sony, Samsung, and Intel to buy the company or to license the technology. He said those companies have the money to see that the product is mass produced and sold as part of new screens.

“We want to scale up the business very quickly,” he said.

Seetzen knows what he’s talking about. As one the inventors of LED screen technology, he sold his company to San Francisco-based Dolby Laboratories in 2007 for $30 million.

In the hope Seetzen can repeat that feat, Hennessey, who recently married an ex-Montrealer, will continue to split his time between Vancouver and Montreal to both run his business and teach. If the technology is sold to a major electronics company, he’ll likely have to relocate to that company’s location, since he is the brains behind the operation.

“For now, we’re not setting down any roots,” Hennessey said.

Here’s the original story.

Mirametrix Toolbox for MATLAB Now Available

July 11th, 2011

We’ve just launched our new Mirametrix Toolbox for MATLAB. The toolbox allows you to very easily and quickly integrate the S2 Eye Tracker (and its older S1 predecessor) with MATLAB. You’ll be able to access eye gaze data through MATLAB. You can also calibrate the eye tracker through MATLAB as well.

The Toolbox is available for customers when they download the eye tracking software.

We’ve included example code to demonstrate how to implement and access eye gaze data inside MATLAB, and use the eye gaze data in your MATLAB-related experiments.

For more information visit our Mirametrix Toolbox for MATLAB >>

Mirametrix Launches the New S2 Eye Tracker

June 1st, 2011

We’re very pleased to announce the launch of our new S2 Eye Tracker. It’s a more portable, lightweight version of our previous eye tracking product. You can learn more about the new eye tracker and the accompanying eye tracking software.

The simplicity of setup and use is better than ever as you can see in the video below:

“The S2 Eye Tracker is the easiest and most cost effective way to do desktop focused eye tracking research,” said Helge Seetzen, CEO Mirametrix Research.

The S2 Eye Tracker is extremely portable and lightweight. It can be setup in less than two minutes. The eye tracking also calibrates in 15 or fewer seconds and that calibration is long lasting. The S2 Eye Tracker comes with software for analyzing gaze data in real time and an API for integrating with other applications.

“People are now seeing the potential of using eye tracking research in many different ways,” said Helge Seetzen. “With the S2, eye tracking is affordable and straightforward, which makes it easier than ever to study eye movement and gaze tracking.”

TandemLaunch Technologies Acquires Mirametrix Research

March 7th, 2011

We have some great news today! TandemLaunch Technologies has acquired Mirametrix Research. This will continue to move forward at Mirametrix, this will now provide us additional resources to grow the business and meet our customers’ requirements in the future. If you have any questions, please get in touch. The official press release is below:

MONTREAL (Quebec), February 18, 2011 – TandemLaunch Technologies today announced that it has completed the acquisition of all assets and staff of Vancouver-based Mirametrix Research Inc., a privately held provider of gaze tracking technology.

Mirametrix is a technology company offering affordable gaze tracking systems for application in vision research and content analytics. The technology acquired through Mirametrix complements TandemLaunch’s consumer gaze tracking portfolio.

“Mirametrix is an innovative small company that has successfully introduced gaze tracking solutions for cost-competitive applications. TandemLaunch offers the resources to scale the Mirametrix business and ultimately bring gaze tracking into the consumer market” said Helge Seetzen, CEO of TandemLaunch.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

About TandemLaunch Technologies

TandemLaunch Technologies is a turn-key accelerator for multi-media innovation. By providing funding and resources, TandemLaunch enables inventors to bring their ideas to market. TandemLaunch invests up to $1M through a combination of venture funding, at-cost infrastructure and world-class talent. For more information visit tandemlaunchtech.com.

Contact

Helge Seetzen, CEO TandemLaunch Technologies
(438) 380-5435 – www.tandemlaunchtech.com