The ease and power of touchscreen computing is spreading fast. Given how compelling and pleasant tablet computing can be, it is easy to accept International Data Corporation’s prediction that worldwide tablet shipments will top total PC shipments by year’s end. But what about when touching the screen is out of the question?

For many people with constrained mobility due to arthritis, muscular dystrophy, Rett syndrome, or spinal cord injuries, a new portable eye tracking device could provide an answer. The Tobii EyeMobile, produced by Tobii Assistive Technology, brings eye-control capabilities to Windows 8 tablets, including the Microsoft Surface.

The portable tracker helps people with physical and communication impairments to navigate and control Microsoft’s Surface and other Windows 8 tablets with simple eye movements, translating a person’s gaze into touch gestures, taps, and sideswipes.

Surface tablets have been a sales flop to date. Even with the anticipated introduction of updated tablets soon, Microsoft may fail to grow the platform’s market share. But whether Windows tablets succeed or not is far less important than the future of mobile eye-tracking hardware. EyeMobile is to touchscreen computing what the curb cut is to sidewalk strollers: An accommodation for the disabled that ultimately benefits us all.

The EyeMobile is not cheap. It requires a $3,900 PCEye Go eye tracker and a $375 mounting bracket. But it is already cheaper, smaller, and lighter than its predecessor, the $6,900 PCEye. Will the next generation cut another $1,000 or more from the cost of mobile eye tracking? Given the pace at which hardware and software has advanced, it seems fair to imagine so. And with more time yet, it isn’t hard to imagine Tobii’s technology, or technology developed by a competitor, finding its way into phones running Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system.

Tobii is already finding new uses for the PCEye Go in the ergonomics market, says Tara Rudnicki, president of Tobii ATI. The company has fielded interest in eye-tracking from companies employing animators and geoscientists looking to relieve their workers of repetitive strain injuries. It has even explored application of the technology for drowsiness detection and hand-free information access in surgery and other sterile environments.

The company recently unveiled results of its partnership with Synaptics, one of the world’s largest developers and suppliers of laptop touch pads and other inputs for computers, just a few days before the world lost Douglas Engelbart, the father of the computer mouse and a pioneer of human-computer interaction. Tobii and Synaptics’ prototype laptop incorporates a force-sensitive touch pad and a Tobii eye-tracking controller. Engelbart’s mouse isn’t about to disappear, nor certainly will touch controllers. But the push to develop technology for those who simply cannot use those devices is giving us all new options, putting people of all abilities in touch with a better future.