Intel is betting big on the future of human interfaces with a $21 million investment in Tobii, a Swedish company that has been working for years on eye-tracking laptops and other devices.

The news, announced by co-founder and VP John Elvesjö comes on the heels of Tobii’s newest eye-tracking device, which was announced a week ago at CeBit. Elvesjö said that the cunning plan was always to test its technology small scale in laptops and then expand into larger markets like cars and mobile phones.

Eye-tracking is a influential feature that could grow in value. Tobii technology has already been showing how it can control Windows 8 via eye-tracking.

Tobii is unprofitable and 2010 saw a $3.5M loss. Its new eye-tracker is smaller and cheaper and draws less power than its predecessor. It can even be embedded.