Smart Eye and Per

We went to Smart Eye today and met with Sales Manager, Magnus Sjölin. Magnus worked with J.J. at ABB. Smart Eye was founded in 1999 and is an eye tracking company. There are about 30 employees. Eye tracking is a camera system that measures point of gaze (where the eye is looking) or motion of an eye relative to the head. There are two types of trackers, non-video and video based; Smart Eye uses video. They can use head mounted, screen mounted, or a remote with free camera placement. They typically use screen mounted. We actually got to see and demo the screen-mounted camera, which was awesome! They would flash a picture for about 30 seconds on the screen and did a series of five or six pictures.

After, the computer would show where the person’s eyes were looking and the pattern of their eye movement; as well as a heat map of it. Then, we got to demo the “Mario Cart” video game simulation. It was a booth set up like an arcade driving game and the person playing had to drive on the race course and then afterwards it would show on a separate monitor where their eyes were looking when they were driving. An interesting fact I learned was that 30 percent of car accidents are because drivers aren’t paying attention to the road or fall asleep. This kind of eye tracking technology could be used in cars to sense when someone is being distracted or falling asleep and could correct the driver (i.e. turn cold air on if the driver is falling asleep). If this technology were to be used in a car, another function of it could be the ability to control applications just with your eyes. A person’s pupil size can tell you a lot—you could tell if someone were drunk, or if they are lying. This technology can be used in the following fields:

•  Auto industry
•  Simulators, cars, trucks, helicopters, planes
• Control rooms
• Screen measurements, single/multiple screens
• Behavioral science
• Marketing
• Psychology
• Neurology
• Non human primate research

Smart Eye has worked with the military and NASA. There are a few types of video tracking: 2D or 3D tracking, pupil tracking with bright/dark pupil, iris tracking, and corneal tracking to determine eye position. Something that makes Smart Eye stand out from their competition is that they use two to eight cameras; whereas their competitors only use two—no one else has figured out how to use more. I really enjoyed going to Smart Eye because we were able to test out this futuristic technology that I’m sure will be implemented in many ways in the near future.

After Smart Eye, a group of us went to Tin Tin for lunch, which is just a couple blocks away from our hostel. I got a club sandwich and then split a chocolate chip cookie with M&M’s and a piece of flourless chocolate cake with Paddy—the food and dessert were to die for!!!

Then, we went to LOTS, an innovation and design agency, to meet Per Norlin, Product Development Director at Getinge Group. We first met with an employee Per has worked with at LOTS agency and learned about some of the projects they’ve worked on.  

Per had worked at ABB for 20 years and has worked at Getinge for three years. He is responsible for seven R&D sites. Getinge has three business areas: medical systems, infection control, and extended care. Per works in the infection control area. He shared the four keys to innovation with us: vision, build your team, communicate, and internal selling. Per gave a wonderful presentation! It was really nice that he didn’t beat around the bush with some of the stories he shared with us—he truly wanted to better prepare us for the real world of business.