Tobii Technology

Tobii
Limited liability company
Traded as Nasdaq Stockholm: TOBII
Industry Hardware and software development
Founded Sweden (2001)
Founders John Elvesjö
Area served
 Worldwide
Key people
 Kent Sander (Chairman)
John Elvesjö (vice President and CTO)
Henrik Eskilsson (CEO)
Products AAC devices
Eye tracking products for research and market analysis.
Eye tracking components for industrial integration.
Revenue 621 million SEK (2014)[1]
Number of employees
 600[1]
Parent Tobii AB
Subsidiaries Tobii Technology Inc
Tobii Dynavox LLC
Tobii Technology GmbH
Tobii Technology Norge
Tobii Technology Ltd
Tobii Electronics Technology Suzhou Co,. Ltd
Website www.tobii.com

Tobii (formerly known as Tobii Technology AB) is a Swedish high-technology company that develops and sells products for eye control and eye tracking.

History

John Elvesjo, Mårten Skogö and Henrik Eskilsson founded the company in 2001. All three founders play an active role in the company: Henrik Eskilsson is the CEO, John Elvesjö is vice president and CTO, and Mårten Skogö is Chief Science Officer. The Tobii Group consists of three business units: Tobii Dynavox from an acquisition of US based DynaVox,[2] Tobii Pro, and Tobii Tech. Tobii is based in Stockholm, Sweden, with offices in the US, Japan, China, Germany, Norway and Ukraine. Tobii became publicly traded on April 22, 2015,[3] trading on the Stockholm Stock Exchange.

In 2007, the company got $14 million in venture capital from Investor Growth Capital.[4] In May 2009, Investor, Amadeus Capital Partners and Northzone Ventures invested an additional $16 million,[5] and at the start of 2012, Intel Capital invested $21 million.[6]

In 2008, Tobii won the Swedish Grand Award of Design together with the design company Myra Industriell Design, for the technology and design in their eye controlled screens.[7] In 2010, Tobii won the SIME Grand Prize for having the most innovative technology concept. In 2011, Tobii Glasses won the red dot design award, an international product design competition and later the same year, Tobii won the Bully Award. In 2012, Tobii took home the award for best prototype at the consumer technology tradeshow 2012 CES and Laptop Magazine named Tobii the winner in its best new technology category.

Products

Tobii's products are sold directly and through resellers and partners worldwide. People with communication disabilities use Tobii Dynavox’s technical devices and language tools (AAC devices) to communicate. Due to their high cost, they are often the goal of charity drives.[8][9][10][11]

Tobii Pro has products that are widely used for research in the academic community, and to conduct usability studies and market surveys of commercial products. Tobii Tech is the business unit that partners with others to integrate eye tracking and eye control in different industry applications and fields such as advanced driver assistance,[12] consumer computing[13][14] and gaming.

At the Consumer Electronics Show 2012, they demonstrated the Tobii Gaze, an infrared light based eye tracking device that makes it possible for users to use their eyes to point and interact with a standard computer.[15]

In 2014, Tobii partnered with Danish SteelSeries and launched their first eye tracking system for consumers: the Tobii EyeX and the SteelSeries Sentry Eye Tracker.[16] Several video games from major publishers were released in 2015-16 with support for Tobii's consumer devices, with varying levels of success.[17][18][19]

References

  1. 1 2 "About Tobii - Our business & organization". Tobii. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  2. ↑ "Tobii Acquires AAC leader DynaVox Systems LLC" (Press release). 22 May 2014. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  3. ↑ "Sweden's Tobii sets IPO price range at 22-25 SEK/share". Reuters. 13 April 2015. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  4. ↑ "Tobii Technology Raises $14M in Funding From Investor Growth Capital" (Press release). Businesswire. 26 March 2007. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  5. ↑ "Tobii Technology raises $16M funding" (Press release). MrWeb. 15 May 2009. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  6. ↑ Grundberg, Sven (16 March 2012). "Intel invests in Tobii eye tracker". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  7. ↑ Bergsell, Thomas (6 May 2008). "Ögonstyrda bildskärmar tilldelas Stora designpriset" [Grand Award of Design awarded for eye tracking screens] (in Swedish). Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  8. ↑ Rose, Beth (17 March 2016). "Breaking the silence at 16 years old with the words 'Hello Mum'". BBC News. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  9. ↑ Weaver, Stephanie (2 March 2016). "Appeal to raise £20,000 for 'must-have' equipment for intensive care patients at hospital in Northamptonshire". Northampton Chronicle & Echo. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  10. ↑ Roberts, Emily (13 July 2013). "Winklebury mum Esther Camp will shave off her bright pink hair". Basingstoke Gazette. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  11. ↑ "Anonymous cash donation helps disabled three-year-old's dreams of communicating come true". Express & Star. 7 January 2015. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  12. ↑ Byrne, Ciara (30 November 2011). "Tobii keeps an eye on distracted drivers". VentureBeat. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  13. ↑ Levine, Barry (6 March 2012). "Here Comes the Next Generation of Eye-Tracking". Top Tech News. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  14. ↑ Chan, Casey (8 January 2012). "I just controlled Windows 8 with my eyes and it made me believe in technology again". Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  15. ↑ Nayan, Kamal (5 January 2014). "EyeX Controller: SteelSeries and Tobii Technology team up to take on Kinect with eye-tracking controller". Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  16. ↑ Kamen, Matt (10 July 2015). "Is the gaming eye tracker worth keeping an eye on?". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  17. ↑ Hachman, Mark (17 Feb 2016). "Tobii eyeX review: The 'eye mouse' is magical, but just not for everyone". PC World. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  18. ↑ Gent, Edd (14 September 2015). "Eye-tracking tech: Countdown to lift-off?". Engineering & Technology. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
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