With the existing commercially available devices like Tobii PCEye or the EyeTech TM3, a user can control a computer with his/her eyes. But these devices are very costly (priced between $5,000 and $7,000). The good news is, Dr Aldo Faisal, a Neuroscientist at Imperial College in London, has created a $30 cost device which allows wearers to use their eye movements to control a computer. Get some more details inside.
Aldo Faisal has devised a device named GT3D. It costs only $30. Basically it is a spectacle with two cameras at the front of the glass. Creating this device is very easy. Get the necessary elements of this device like two video-game console cameras and one pair of horn-rimmed glasses from store. Simply create the device and control a computer, even a wheelchair with your eyes. The device is the fruit of his obsession with disassembling gadgets. Faisal and his team of researchers bought the equipment from store at £39.80 ($64) and built the gadget.
Faisal made an experiment. Eye-tracking device works by first establishing where a person’s eyes are looking, through a relatively straight-forward calibration process. Then wearing a glass having two attached cameras at the front, the glass wearers were told to stare at a computer screen. The computer screen was showing full of dots. After that, the wearers were told told to look at different dots. As soon as they did, a software developed by the researchers analyzing the eyes movement and how the eye looked at each dot.
Researchers found that once calibrated, the device was able to control a mouse on the screen and outputted accurate result. After proper testing Faisal and his team team found the device was working fine.
Faisal said, “I like to play with gadgets and was playing with a popular video-game console. I hacked it and discovered it was very fast and better than any webcam for movement. Actually, it was so fast that I found we could record eye movement with it. We originally created the device for £39.80 ($64) but recent falls in the price of video game console cameras mean we could now actually make the same device for about £20 ($32).”
Faisal believes this device would help millions of people who are suffering (or will be suffering in future) from Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s, muscular dystrophy. In fact the device has opened the door to a new era of hands-free computers without using a mouse, keyboard or touch screen. In fact he is eagerly waiting to promote the device to all. If he finds no commercial partner coming forward within the next two year, Faisal and his team members will publish all the information of GT3D including software details online and make it freely available for anyone to replicate.
However, if you are interested to know more, you can find a demonstration of his device published in the peer-reviewed journal BMC Neuroscience.
Source : CNN
[ttjad keyword=”best-selling-gadget”]
