Alienware, a leading pioneer in specialty high-performance PC gaming systems, today unveiled the Alienware 17 gaming notebook with integrated eye tracking hardware and software from Tobii. The device is the world’s first notebook to capitalize on eye tracking’s unique ability to identify and anticipate a user’s actions based on their presence and attention. Armed with this new intelligence, the Alienware 17 provides greater convenience, enhanced security, optimized power management and even insight into a gamer’s style and technique.
“Alienware, never shy to innovation or groundbreaking design, understands the value of eye tracking as it relates to the interaction between gamer and machine,” said Oscar Werner, president of Tobii Tech. “With a greater understanding of its user and a better idea of their intentions, the Tobii solution in the Alienware 17 can bring gamers new experiences and insights unlike any other seen in gaming PC.”
With deep integration across both hardware and software, eye tracking functionality found in the Alienware 17 makes it more responsive and more in sync with the user. The flagship notebook contains several new features, including:
- Wake on Gaze – In order to wake the notebook up from sleep mode, the user looks directly at the Alienware logo and the device will power up. This ensures the notebook acts on the specific user intent of activating the device and avoids accidental power ups.
- Keyboard Lights – Now equipped with the ability to understand the user’s current focus and attention, the Alienware 17 is able to optimize the power exchange between both the keyboard’s lighting zones and the screen. When the user is looking at the screen the keyboard backlights remain off since the user is not currently interested in this area. Key illumination also only occurs in the region the user is currently looking, rather than the entire keyboard, further optimizing power management.
- Alienware Logo and AlienFX Chassis Lights – These visual brand elements are also gaze-reactive and optimized to save power.
- Stay Awake / Dim Screen – These presence features inform the device when the user is both present and engaged with the screen, prompting the screen to either stay awake or dim to conserve power when the user engages/disengages with the screen. These features are also found in the Alienware 15 and 13 models.
- Autolock – Another presence feature powered by Tobii, this enhanced security measure prompts the device to lock when the user steps away from the device. This reduces the vulnerability of unauthorized use by another user when the sleep timer is engaged but the device is not yet locked. This feature is also found in the Alienware 15 and 13 models.
- Windows Hello – As previously seen on other eye trackers, like the Tobii EyeX peripheral, Alienware 17 owners can also count on more secure and more convenient device log-ins with Windows Hello. Activated immediately after Wake on Gaze, this biometric login gets users into their device faster and more conveniently without the need to type in a traditional password. Tobii platforms are the only eye tracking platforms in the world validated to support facial recognition for Windows Hello.
Acknowledging the increasing demand for game analytics and the growing popularity of competitive gaming and e-sports, Alienware and Tobii have also teamed up with Overwolf to bring eye tracking data to their popular training tools. These four apps track and record gamers’ eye movements to help them understand and improve performance with insights on how their attention and inputs intermingle:
- Replay HUD – Now equipped with an additional layer of gaze data, this playback tool helps analyze and improve situational awareness by showing where you looked during game replays.
- Game Capture – Also equipped with gaze replay data, this app allows gamers to remember and learn from their mistakes over the course of an entire match.
- Twitch Streaming – Now able to provide live gaze data in stream, Twitch Streamers now have another tool to instruct their audience and provide a richer entertainment experience.
- End Screen – An aggregate of gaze data displayed as a heatmap, this tool helps gamers understand where they spend the majority of their attention on screen, allowing them to recognize bad habits and adjust.
Those among the first to purchase Alienware 17 will also get a free Standard Edition copy of Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs 2, the highly-anticipated open world action-adventure game and sequel to 2014 blockbuster Watch Dogs. The title will join the ranks of other Ubisoft blockbusters like Tom Clancy’s The Division and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate to include several Tobii eye tracking features, making the Alienware 17 bundle one of the most attractive gaming offers of the year.
Alienware 17 owners also have the chance to play with over 40 additional Tobii Eye Tracking Enabled titles. Anticipating over 100 eye tracking titles by the end of 2017, Tobii is actively working with PC game developers and studios of all sizes to rapidly expand the Tobii Eye Tracking game portfolio. Most recently, the company announced eye tracking integrations in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Master of Orion. Please visit Tobii Apps to view the continuously updated game portfolio.
The new Alienware 15 and 17 systems will be configurable to your needs and available to order starting on September 30th, 2016. The Alienware 13 will come in November and more detail will be available as we approach that time.
