The most obvious is its potential as an input device. It’s actually a three-pronged approach to usability. In our time meeting with Tobii at CES, we got a better sense of what the SteelSeries Sentry aims to be. But the Sentry has one thing in common with nascent VR experiences: Sampling it just one time amounts to an eye-opening experience. Much of the tech world is still holding its breath for virtual reality to shake out, and a sensor that tracks your eye movements isn’t as immediately sexy as the idea of plunging users into virtual landscapes. I’ve been fortunate to spend a fair bit of time chatting with Tobii and checking out the tech since 2015 dawned, and the company quietly attended CES in January. The Sentry is a collaborative effort, bringing together the gaming knowhow of peripheral and accessories maker SteelSeries with the robust eye-tracking technology that Tobii Technology’s been perfecting since its founding in 2001. But much like Nintendo’s IR motion sensor, the long, thin device is meant to sit either above or below your display of choice. It’s a bit bulkier, and it’s got three very obvious sensors on either end and in the middle. The Sentry looks like a Wii sensor bar at first glance. Never with a Sentry tracking my eyeballs. I’ve played tons of Assassin’s Creed games before, but never like this. My assassin leaps into action, soaring off the edge of the cliff as he plunges down to stab his unsuspecting target. I lock my eyes on one of them, centering the camera’s field of view on the fresh target, and press a button. Peering downward - again, using my eyes and not the control stick - the camera tilts to show a gang of armed ruffians waiting at the base of the cliff. Later, I find myself perched on the edge of a cliff. But as I reach the edge of the display the pan picks up speed, eventually whipping around to show me the dense jungle that hides my foes. It’s slow at first, a gentle pan that responds to the direction of my gaze. My eyes drift off to the left edge of the screen and the camera rotates in response. Somewhere off in the distance are bad dudes that need to be stabbed, but the assassin I’m in control of is staring out to sea.
The view is a familiar one, an invisible camera floating behind him and just above his shoulder. My assassin is standing on a windswept beach. But that’s bound to happen when you find yourself controlling a game as complex as Assassin’s Creed: Rogue using nothing more than your eyeballs.
I haven’t been this excited about new tech in a long time.
0 kommentar(er)
