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Microsoft's Windows 10 to get eye-tracking functionality

Microsoft is working to add eye-tracking technology to Windows 10, initially as an accessibility feature.
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor

Microsoft is bringing eye-tracking to Windows 10 at some point in the future.

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That feature, called Eye Control, is already inside the latest Windows 10 Insider test builds. The company plans to release the eye-tracking feature as a general public beta when Windows 10 Fall Creators Update begins rolling out this fall.

Eye Control currently works only with Swedish eye-tracking vendor Tobii's Eye Tracker 4C at the moment, though the company is working to add support for other similar devices. (Tobii's eye-tracking technology already has been used by some gaming PC and monitor vendors.) The technology uses a camera on a computer to track where a user is looking on a screen.

A team at Microsoft's One Week hackathon in 2014 were the original designers of this feature, according to Microsoft. It was meant to improve accessibility of Windows PCs for people who cannot use other traditional input devices, such as the former football player, Steve Gleason, who has a neuromuscular disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS),

Eye Control enables users to operate an onscreen mouse and keyboard and text-to-speech using only their eyes.

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