An invisible connection between human and machine is just one of many possible applications for eye-movement sensor technology.

Controlling a remote with a roll of the eyes is not a far-fetched concept, according to Japanese mobile communications company NTT DOCOMO.

On the contrary, the company’s Frontier Technology Research Group executive director uses the term “wearable computing”, in which seamlessly linked discrete devices will help break down barriers between humans and machines.

Dr Masaaki Fukumoto says it is a natural way for technology to evolve.

The company has already gone live with images of a researcher who, with a roll of the eyes, increases the volume on a set of headphones plugged into an on-screen digital music player.

In what the company describes as a “kind of visual ping-pong” the headphone wearer’s eyes dart one way and the player skips to the next song. Looking the other way takes the player to the previous track.

In another experiment a researcher looks at an optical code and a sensor system mirrors the eye movement, locks onto the code, and captures the image and its imbedded data.

NTT DOCOMO researchers believe that one day this will allow us to acquire product information.

“These are not very far-fetched ways to imagine us reading and managing email, buying songs and products, and much more,” Dr Fukumoto says.

He points out that what the company’s research group is doing is harnessing existing technology.

For example, in the case of the headset, Dr Fukumoto adapted a medical device for measuring eye response. The electro-oculogram uses sensors to measure the electrical potential of the cornea and to track where the eye is moving.

In addition to operating a music player, the technology can be used to direct headset-mounted cameras to follow the eyes and show what the wearer is looking at.

“DOCOMO hopes someday to interpret the intentions of users to provide them with highly personalised services,” Dr Fukumoto says.

“DOCOMO’s advanced, multifunctional mobile phones can operate as keys, credit cards, entertainment and information devices and communication tools. But the fact remains that they still do not have sufficient space for a full keyboard – a barrier that needs to be overcome.

“Our research is focusing on wearable computing, in other words multifunctional phones designed as wearable gadgets. Someday we will wear very small devices that become part of us, like fashion accessories.”

This may all appear to be some way in the future; the eye-sensor headset, for example, seems particularly unwieldy. However, the core concepts and functions of the technology are proven.

“The current test device is no more than an assemblage of items available at any good electronics shop.

“What we have here is more like a home-made project. But, with custom parts, it would not be difficult to shrink this and turn it into something marketable.

“A stylish headset capable of controlling other devices and reading codes could easily be on the market in a few years.”

DOCOMO says that if it decides to proceed to commercialisation the first generation of tomorrow’s wearable info-communications products is probably be closer than you think.