1Up - Six New Techs That May Shape PC Gaming
 

1UP has what they refer to as a "weird science" feature article up on some technology that may —or may not—influence future PC gaming. Here's some of the intro:
They look at several new techs, and mention that this one revolving around peripherals simulating physical environment may work well in games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Oblivion:
But this is the one that quite literally "caught my eye" :
More information.

I'm pretty stoked about eyeball-only gaming. Now if they can just get artificial eyes rocking a la Blade Runner, I'm guaranteed to be able to play video games no matter how badly age and poor nutiriotn ravage my unsightly body.

Raiding at 85? Aww yeah.

I saw one video in (youtube?) where this german guy played som shooter controlling the characters movement with som hat that monitored the electromagnetic field around his head or somthing. He moved pretty good with no trouble.

I'll stick w/ the standard gaming paraphenalia, this kinda stuff just doesnt interest me in the slightest.

Humm, not sure it would be a great idea to have everything you look at blow up. Really makes exploring a bit dull, since you'll pretty much slaughter the landscape. "Wow, look that beautiful.. BOOOM".

Still, new ways of gaming is interesting to read about.

I've dabbled a bit in image analysis. The eyeball tracker is fairly established technology in other fields. If webcams are good enough I suspect it could become standard in shooters, since you wouldnt need any fancy extra hardware.

Eyeball tracking also has uses in an office- or handicap aid applications. Very nifty stuff.

I think those kind of technologies are interesting, but from concept to a proper implementation represents a HUGE space.

Having grown up with gaming, I know that the neat technologies we hear about and those that actually make it to our desk are two very different things.

Let's wait and see :)

Sounds like playing an evil mage or an evil Overlord. ;)

Some kids might LOVE this. :D ;)

It's neat to read about, but its hard enough to afford a decent graphics card any more, so I can only imagine the price tag for adding very many of these nifty items to your system. :)

That is true, especially when you need to purchase a gadget for some technology that only is supported by a game or two. I'm rather "optimistic" regarding the eyeball tracking though, as webcams have other uses than games, should have a standardised API for devs, and are fairly cheap. The engineering problems associated with it arent all that daunting either. Once webcams have a high enough resolution (which probably doesnt have to go that much higher) this could be made a standard component in FPS engines or even in the OS itself.