Researchers from the Human Media Lab at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario have developed a new concept that allows computers to pay attention to their users’ needs.

One of the main underlying technologies is an eye contact sensor that allows each device to determine whether a user is present and whether that user is looking at the device. This allows devices to establish what the user is attending to, and when, whether, and how they should contact the user, if at all.

Researchers invent computers that “pay attention” to users