Eye-tracker Lots You Drag and Drop Files with a Glance
Bored of using a mouse? Soon you'll be ableto change stuff on your computer screen – and then moveit directly onto your smartphone or tablet(平板電腦) –with nothing more than a glance.
A system called EyeDrop uses a head-mountedeye tracker that simultaneously records your field of view so it knows whereyou are looking on the screen. Gazing at an object – aphoto, say – and then pressing a key, selects thatobject. It can then be moved from the screen to a tablet or smartphone just byglancing at the second device, as long as the two are connected wirelessly.
"The beauty of using gaze to supportthis is that our eyes naturally focus on content that we want to acquire,"says Jayson Turner, who developed the system with colleagues at LancasterUniversity, UK.
Turner believes EyeDrop would be useful totransfer an interactive map or contact information from a public display toyour smartphone or for sharing photos.
A button needs to be used to select theobject you are looking at otherwise you end up with the "Midastouch"(點石成金) effect, whereby everything you lookat gets selected by your gaze, says Turner. "Imagine if your mouse clickedon everything it pointed at," he says.
Christian Holz, a researcher inhuman-computer interaction at Yahoo Labs in Sunnyvale, California, says thesystem is a nice take on getting round this fundamental problem of usinggaze-tracking to interact. "EyeDrop solves this in a slick (靈巧的)way by combining it with input on the touch devices we carry withus most of the time anyway and using touch input as a clutchingmechanism," he says. "This now allows users to seamlessly(無縫地) interact across devices far and close in a very naturalmanner."
While current eye-trackers are rather bulky,mainstream consumer devices are not too far away. Swedish firm Tobii isdeveloping gaze-tracking technology that can be installed in laptops andtablets and is expected to be available to buy next year. And the Google Glassheadset is expected to include eye-tracking in the future.
Turner says he has also looked at how contentcan be cut and pasted or drag-and-dropped using a mix of gaze and taps on atouchscreen. The system was presented at the Conference on Mobile andUbiquitous Multimedia in Sweden, last week.
41. The eye-tracker technology enables usto______
A. change our computer screen.
B. focus on anything that interests us.
C. get a smartphone connected wirelessly.
D. move an object from screen with a glance.
42. Why is a button needed?
A. To minimize the cost of EyeDrop.
B. To choose as many objects as possible.
C. To make EyeDrop different from others.
D. To select what we want.
43. The word “this” in Paragraph 6 refers to_______
A. application of gaze-tracking inhuman-computer interaction.
B. interaction between human and computer.
C. combination of gaze-tracking with input ontouch devices.
D. generalization of EyeDrop system.
44. Which of the following statement is trueof eye-trackers for consumer devices.
A. They are costly.
B. They are available.
C. They are installed in Google Glassheadset.
D. They are expected to come out soon.
45. What is Turner likely to study next?
A. How to drag and drop with gaze and taps.
B. How to present the system in public.
C. How to get touch screen involved.
D. How to cut and paste content from a publicdisplay. The Mir Space Station
1 The Russian Mir Space Station, which came down in 2001 at last after 15 years of pioneering the concept of long-term human space flight, is remembered for its accomplishments in the human space flight history. It can be credited with many firsts in space.
2 During Mir’s lifetime, Russia spent about US $4.2 billion to build and maintain the station.
3 The Soviet Union launched Mir, which was designed to last from three to five years, on February 20, 1986, and housed 104 astronauts over 12 years and seven months, most of whom were not Russian. In fact, it became the first international space station by playing host to1 62 people from 11 countries. From 1995 through 1998, seven astronauts from the United States took turns living on Mir for up to six months each2. They were among the 37 Americans who visited the station during nine stopovers by space shuttles.
4 The more than 400 million the United States provided Russian for the visits not only kept Mir operating, but also gave the Americans and their partners in the international station project valuable experience in long-term flight and multinational operations.
5 A debate continues over Mir’s contributions to science. During its existence, Mir was the laboratory for 23,000 experiments and carried scientific equipment, estimated to be worth $80 million, from many nations.3 Experiments on Mir are credited with a range of findings, from the first solid measurement of the ration of heavy helium atoms in space to how to grow wheat in space. But for those favouring human space exploration, Mir showed that people could live and work in space long enough for a trip to Mars. The longest single stay in space is the 437.7 days that Russian astronaut Valery Polyakov spent on Mir from 1994 to 1995. And Sergie Avdeyev accumulated 747.6 days in space in three trips to the space station. The longest American stay was that of Shannon Lucid4, who spent 188 days aboard Mir in 1996.
6 Despite the many firsts Mir accomplished, 1997 was a bad year out of 15 for Mir. In 1997, an oxygen generator caught fire. Later, the main computer system broke down, causing the station to drift several times and there were power failures.
7 Most of these problems were repaired, with American help and suppliers, but Mir’s reputation as a space station was ruined.
8 Mir’s setbacks are nothing, though5, when we compare them with its accomplishments. Mir was a tremendous success, which will be remembered as a milestone in space exploration and the space station that showed long-term human habitation in space was possible. But it’s time to move on to the next generation. The International Space Station being built will be better, but it owes a great debt to Mir.
Bored of using a mouse? Soon you'll be ableto change stuff on your computer screen – and then moveit directly onto your smartphone or tablet(平板電腦) –with nothing more than a glance.
A system called EyeDrop uses a head-mountedeye tracker that simultaneously records your field of view so it knows whereyou are looking on the screen. Gazing at an object – aphoto, say – and then pressing a key, selects thatobject. It can then be moved from the screen to a tablet or smartphone just byglancing at the second device, as long as the two are connected wirelessly.
"The beauty of using gaze to supportthis is that our eyes naturally focus on content that we want to acquire,"says Jayson Turner, who developed the system with colleagues at LancasterUniversity, UK.
Turner believes EyeDrop would be useful totransfer an interactive map or contact information from a public display toyour smartphone or for sharing photos.
A button needs to be used to select theobject you are looking at otherwise you end up with the "Midastouch"(點石成金) effect, whereby everything you lookat gets selected by your gaze, says Turner. "Imagine if your mouse clickedon everything it pointed at," he says.
Christian Holz, a researcher inhuman-computer interaction at Yahoo Labs in Sunnyvale, California, says thesystem is a nice take on getting round this fundamental problem of usinggaze-tracking to interact. "EyeDrop solves this in a slick (靈巧的)way by combining it with input on the touch devices we carry withus most of the time anyway and using touch input as a clutchingmechanism," he says. "This now allows users to seamlessly(無縫地) interact across devices far and close in a very naturalmanner."
While current eye-trackers are rather bulky,mainstream consumer devices are not too far away. Swedish firm Tobii isdeveloping gaze-tracking technology that can be installed in laptops andtablets and is expected to be available to buy next year. And the Google Glassheadset is expected to include eye-tracking in the future.
Turner says he has also looked at how contentcan be cut and pasted or drag-and-dropped using a mix of gaze and taps on atouchscreen. The system was presented at the Conference on Mobile andUbiquitous Multimedia in Sweden, last week.
41. The eye-tracker technology enables usto______
A. change our computer screen.
B. focus on anything that interests us.
C. get a smartphone connected wirelessly.
D. move an object from screen with a glance.
42. Why is a button needed?
A. To minimize the cost of EyeDrop.
B. To choose as many objects as possible.
C. To make EyeDrop different from others.
D. To select what we want.
43. The word “this” in Paragraph 6 refers to_______
A. application of gaze-tracking inhuman-computer interaction.
B. interaction between human and computer.
C. combination of gaze-tracking with input ontouch devices.
D. generalization of EyeDrop system.
44. Which of the following statement is trueof eye-trackers for consumer devices.
A. They are costly.
B. They are available.
C. They are installed in Google Glassheadset.
D. They are expected to come out soon.
45. What is Turner likely to study next?
A. How to drag and drop with gaze and taps.
B. How to present the system in public.
C. How to get touch screen involved.
D. How to cut and paste content from a publicdisplay. The Mir Space Station
1 The Russian Mir Space Station, which came down in 2001 at last after 15 years of pioneering the concept of long-term human space flight, is remembered for its accomplishments in the human space flight history. It can be credited with many firsts in space.
2 During Mir’s lifetime, Russia spent about US $4.2 billion to build and maintain the station.
3 The Soviet Union launched Mir, which was designed to last from three to five years, on February 20, 1986, and housed 104 astronauts over 12 years and seven months, most of whom were not Russian. In fact, it became the first international space station by playing host to1 62 people from 11 countries. From 1995 through 1998, seven astronauts from the United States took turns living on Mir for up to six months each2. They were among the 37 Americans who visited the station during nine stopovers by space shuttles.
4 The more than 400 million the United States provided Russian for the visits not only kept Mir operating, but also gave the Americans and their partners in the international station project valuable experience in long-term flight and multinational operations.
5 A debate continues over Mir’s contributions to science. During its existence, Mir was the laboratory for 23,000 experiments and carried scientific equipment, estimated to be worth $80 million, from many nations.3 Experiments on Mir are credited with a range of findings, from the first solid measurement of the ration of heavy helium atoms in space to how to grow wheat in space. But for those favouring human space exploration, Mir showed that people could live and work in space long enough for a trip to Mars. The longest single stay in space is the 437.7 days that Russian astronaut Valery Polyakov spent on Mir from 1994 to 1995. And Sergie Avdeyev accumulated 747.6 days in space in three trips to the space station. The longest American stay was that of Shannon Lucid4, who spent 188 days aboard Mir in 1996.
6 Despite the many firsts Mir accomplished, 1997 was a bad year out of 15 for Mir. In 1997, an oxygen generator caught fire. Later, the main computer system broke down, causing the station to drift several times and there were power failures.
7 Most of these problems were repaired, with American help and suppliers, but Mir’s reputation as a space station was ruined.
8 Mir’s setbacks are nothing, though5, when we compare them with its accomplishments. Mir was a tremendous success, which will be remembered as a milestone in space exploration and the space station that showed long-term human habitation in space was possible. But it’s time to move on to the next generation. The International Space Station being built will be better, but it owes a great debt to Mir.