Now, ads that track your eyes in supermarkets

Researchers have created an advertising system, which is able to track people's eye movements while they shop.

Researchers have created an advertising system, which is able to track people's eye movements while they shop.

The Sideways project by Lancaster University researchers uses software to locate faces and eye movements of shoppers captured on camera, the BBC reported.

It can also allow for video screens that change advertisements depending on what they look at in a shop.

The research team said that they hoped that their technology will be in use in shops within five years.

The technology can also be used to allow people to use their eyes to control content on screens, like scrolling through items on a list.

Senior researcher Andreas Bulling explained that the system used a single ordinary camera that is placed close to the screen negating the need for any additional equipment.

He said that the system detects people's faces walking by and calculates where the eyes are relative to the eye corners.

Bulling has worked on the project with fellow researchers Hans Gellersen and Yanxia Zhang from Lancaster's School of Computing and Communications.

He said that the Sideways system can track up to 14 people at the same time.

He asserted that with normal systems people have to calibrate the tracker to the specific user and calibration is a major stumbling block for interactive gaze-based applications at the moment, as people have to go through this calibration procedure - it's time-consuming and annoying.