Facebook's Oculus has reportedly acquired The Eye Tribe, a start-up company known for creating tech that focuses on eye tracking for consumer devices then providing licenses vendors in consumer tech industry.
The Eye Tribe was founded in 2007 with the goal of making eye tracking accessible for everyone. The company announces the world's first multi-platform eye tracking solution for VR applications at the 2016 International CES in Las Vegas and was the 2016 CES Innovation Awards winner. Oculus, on the other hand, specializes in virtual reality and technology. It was bought by Facebook for $2 billion in 2014.
The virtual reality powerhouse, Oculus, has most likely acquired The Eye Tribe for foveation. The Eye Tribe has also done impressive work on foveated rendering which could greatly improve graphics and provide a more natural immersion for virtual reality users. Current headsets require users to move their heads to focus on certain objects, quite different from the way we actually perceive objects with just the movement of our eyes. Foveated rendering only sharply renders whatever the user is looking at, while the user's periphery is blurred, imitating what the eye already does. This will greatly help in lowering GPU load and power consumption.
Oculus may place itself ahead of its competitors, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR, with the help of their newly acquired startup. We might see it working in action once Oculus releases the Oculus Rift 2. Oculus has been on a roll with the company showcasing a prototype for Santa Cruz, an effort to provide a smooth virtual reality experience without the troublesome wires. Samsung Gear VR has also recently received Parties and Room, features that enable the users to feel a sense of presence with other people in the virtual reality world. The Oculus Rift will have these features in 2017.
