Startup adds eye-tracking technology to virtual reality

San Francisco-based startup Fove has developed eye-tracking for virtual reality -- that kernel of technology many feel is key for the illusion of becoming immersed in a setting. Or use a death stare to shoot down virtual spaceships. Watch a movie of a forest or a room and be able to look around wherever you want. "It allows you to go inside the world that's behind the display," said Yuka Kojima, Fove's co-founder and a rare female chief executive in male-dominated Japan Inc. Fove, which comes from "fovea," the part of the eye with the sharpest vision, from "field of view," and the word's similarity with "love," has devised a way to use tiny infrared sensors inside headset goggles to monitor the movements of a wearer's pupils. It's a small company, founded in 2014, with offices in Tokyo, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and employing just 17 people.