Gaze Tracking in the Real World: ROI on Physical Advertisements

Roel Vertegaal recounted back at CHI 2003 that he was done with eye fixation tracking and focused on devices with cheap cameras that could simply detect whether they were receiving visual attention, or not. An alarm clock might offer different interfaces, a digital camera display might come on -- all sorts of possibilities.

Looks like Roel's come up with a more lucrative way, at least in the short run, to monetize the detection of attention -- measuring real world advertising. See the EE Times, New Scientist, or Engadget articles for detail.

Wow! That's a lot of action. It's not quite Minority Report, with video ads personalizing themselves, but I expect we may see a return to fashion of sunglasses indoors!