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LAS VEGAS--At CES this year, Tobii, which has been making technology that watches what you're looking at on a screen, is showing off its gaze-controlled demo laptop and introducing its eye control interface for Windows 8.

I first met Barbara Barclay, general manager of Tobii North America, at the D9 conference last June, and we had a talk about my reservations over eye control. On paper, this technology is incredibly cool and sci-fi-ish, but my issue is this: We use our eyes to see, not to control. There's a big cognitive difference between looking at something on a screen and touching it (or mousing to it). Eyes are input devices, not output. That's why gaze tracking for analytics makes sense. But for controlling a computer interface? … Read more

After investing a considerable amount of time and effort on the Android 4.0 user interface (UI), Google is taking steps to ensure that it remains a key component of devices.

Writing on the developer blog yesterday, Android Framework engineer Adam Powell outlined the new compatibility standard for the Holo theme first introduced in 3.0 Honeycomb.

Going forward, devices running Ice Cream Sandwich with official access to the Android Market will offer the Holo themes as they were initially created. So in other words, developers will have a standard set of UI elements to work with, ultimately resulting in … Read more

A public beta of Windows 8 will launch in late February of next year, says tech news site The Next Web.

Citing "sources close to Microsoft," TNW pointed to February for the beta's debut but said the release date for the final version of Windows 8 remains a mystery, though it's expected to ship next year.

Mary Jo Foley of CNET sister site ZDNet said she's heard that the beta would appear after next month's Consumer Electronics Show, which runs from January 10 to 13, but Foley said she isn't aware of any … Read more

You know something went wrong with your Web site's redesign when two people who used to work on it publish detailed, scathing assessments.

Google Reader, revamped this week, falls into that category. Google gave the RSS site the new red-and-black look that's sprouting at Gmail and elsewhere and, deeper down, changed the mechanics of how people can share posts they're interested in.

Former Google Reader product manager Brian Shih took Google to task for a monochromatic user interface (UI) that squanders too much screen space on a header bar and for making it harder to share posts: &… Read more

The next iPhone will be unveiled tomorrow, Facebook partners with Websense to check for malicious links, and a major security vulnerability in HTC Android phones reveals a huge amount of personal data.

Links from Monday's episode of Loaded:

Windows 8 will let users more easily and seemlessly bridge the gap between online and offline by directly tapping into Microsoft's Windows Live service.

In an Inside Windows Live blog posted yesterday, Chris Jones, vice president for Windows Live engineering, shared some of the features and benefits of the new Windows Live integration in Microsoft's upcoming OS.

Right off the bat, Windows 8 prompts you to log in with your Windows Live ID. If you allow it to do so, Windows Live can then automatically store your Windows profile, settings, and other key files in the cloud. This gives you the ability to synchronize those settings with any Windows 8 PC in which you're logged in, ensuring that you retain the same preferences from one PC to another. Microsoft is also promising the same synchronization between PCs and mobile devices running Windows Phone 7.

Windows 8 will also integrate more smoothly with SkyDrive, Microsoft's online storage site. Documents, photos, and other files that you create locally can be saved to SkyDrive, accessed from any PC, and even shared with other people that you designate. Microsoft will reportedly still limit SkyDrive users to 25 gigabytes of space for most files but offer unlimited storage for photos or Office documents.… Read more

Windows 8 will usher in yet another revision to the file management system used by millions of people.

A blog post today by Microsoft Director of Program Management Alex Simons details at great length the future of the new Explorer interface, and lessons learned from previous versions.

One fascinating aspect brought up from Microsoft collecting hundreds of millions of anonymous usage reports (from Windows users) is that despite having over 200 commands in Explorer, "the top 10 commands represent 81.8% of total usage" (such as paste, properties, copy, and delete). Many commands go unused.

Microsoft found that the context menu from right-clicking an object is usually the main method of entering commands at 54.5 percent, with keyboard shortcuts coming in second at 32.2 percent.

It was found that the command bar--the most visible feature of Vista and 7's Explorer menu--contains two of the top 10 commands used overall in Explorer, and was only used a measly 10.9 percent during file management sessions. Therein lies the opportunity for change, Simons said. … Read more

Early design concepts for Mozilla Firefox indicate that the browser continues to bend toward the light emanating from Google Chrome. Designs released for the interface-focused branch of the nightly version of Firefox reveal a look that brings the browser even closer to looking like its Google competitor, although it definitely has its own approach.

The most notable changes come to the search bar, tabs, and add-ons. The search-specific search box, long a staple of Firefox, finally has been removed. Most likely this is because the designers have merged the search feature into the location bar. Mozilla told CNET when Firefox 4 launched in March … Read more

I saw an electronic toilet seat on sale at Costco the other day that made me think about advances in toilet technology. That's not a topic most people spend any time contemplating.

Copenhagen, Denmark's culture design agency UiWE has dedicated plenty of time to the topic with its PeeBetter project. As the name might lead you to believe, it's all about figuring out better ways for people to pee in public spaces.

Follow me here. So far, the big triumph of the PeeBetter project is Pollee, a prototype urinal for the gals. It debuted this summer at the massive annual Roskilde music festival, where notoriously long bathroom lines have held up women for hours.

UiWE says it best: "Pollee is an open air, touch-free urinal made for a semi-squat position." It can handle four women at a time compared with a traditional toilet's inefficient quantity of one. It also features the clean, rounded lines of contemporary Danish design.… Read more