Google acquires Eyefluence, a startup that integrates eye tracking into AR and VR applications

Eyefluence, a startup that focuses on using eye tracking for augmented reality and virtual reality applications has announced in a blogpost that it is joining Google. Current VR and AR applications have one intuitive way to explore and interact with the spaces missing that is eye tracking, an almost invisible way to interface with immersive applications, because most actions in meatspace begin with the eye. Eyefluence is one of the pioneers in this field, with a user interface developed only for head mounted displays. These can be augmented reality or virtual reality goggles. The idea here is to capture the intent of an action almost before the user carries out the action, by tracking the eye movement. One of the potential applications of this technology is to control the smart connected devices around the house, including air purifiers, vacuum cleaners, light switches, doors or ovens using just your sight, through a head mounted device. Jim Marggraff, the CEO of Eyefluence has previously co-founded multiple startups including Livescribe, Explore Technologies and StrataCom. Livesceribe was a digital pen company acquired by Anoto. Explore Technologies made interactive smart globes, a company that was acquired by Leapfrog Enterprises. StrataCom made switches for networking and was acquired by Cisco.