The EyeWriter project is on ongoing collaborative research effort to empower people, who are suffering from ALS, with creative technologies. The project began in Los Angeles, Caifornia in 2009, when members of the GRL, FAT, OF and TEG communities teamed-up with a legendary LA graffiti writer, publisher and activist, named Tony Quan, aka TEMPTONE. Tony was diagnosed with ALS in 2003. The disease has left him almost completely physically paralyzed… except for his eyes. But, the ALS hasn't touched Tony's sharp mind, creative energy or his desire to write graffiti. In August of 2009, artist from around the world: London, Hong Kong, Madrid, Amsterdam and New York City, converged for 10 days in southern California, converted Mick and Caskey Ebeling's Venice Beach house into a laboratory and began to work with Tony on a low-cost, open source eye-tracking system that would allow ALS patients to draw using just their eyes.

The EyeWriter is still in development, but it looks very promising so far. [The Jailbreak via NotCot]

The high end Chameleon product costs $10,000 and is targeted towards government offices that really need to protect secrets and are willing pay. It works by learning the unique way that a user's eye jumps around while reading, called their "gaze pattern", and calibrates the text on screen to match. To anyone else, the screen sees a constantly changing jumble of text, to the user, he sees a Gizmodo liveblog.

A cheaper, webcam-based version called PrivateEye is just as interesting. It detects your eyes so that if someone comes in the room and you turn away to address them, the screen will automatically blur to obfuscate whatever you were working on. It also displays the face of the person looking over your shoulder in a little video thumbnail so that you can see who's coming in, and that person can see that YOU know he's in the room. PrivateEye is available now on Windows machines for just $20. [Oculis via Baltimore Sun via BalTech]

The billboard works by scanning its proximity with an eye-tracking camera, which triggers an image switch on the display panel when it senses someone looking at it. The change only occurs after a brief delay, so that observers understand what's going on, and get the message.

It's a fantastically effective concept, and a brilliant use of technology. Kind of sad, then, that it's probably award bait, and doomed to be a lone installation, according to Copyranter. [Copyranter via Dvice]

The concept, which gives traditionally flat interface elements a very convincing sense of depth and layering, relies on eyetracking and TAT's in-house 3D engine, which renders in real time in the video. This isn't your dad's eyetracking, which analyzes your eyeballs for control cues—no, it really just uses your eyes' locations, along with the orientation of the device, as part of the perspective equation that creates a convincing 3D effect.

We most often recognize TAT for wild concepts that will probably never come to pass—their rejected Android interfaces, their amazingly cool 3D cellphone interface—but this one, or something like it, could look fantastic while actually improving user experiences, not impeding them. [TAT]