So we’ve an Asteroid gaming cabinet that relies on your eyes to help you win the game – but how about using your eyes for something more productive instead of just spending your free time playing? A teen from Honduras has come up with the Eyeboard system, where this low-tech eyeball-tracking device will make use of your eyes’ movement to enter text into a computer, while eye gestures translate into computer gestures. Luis Cruz, young but definitely not green in the programming field, managed to build this Eyeboard system into a set of glasses that will cost no more than $300 a pair, making it easier for those who have motor difficulties to communicate using a computer.
Apart from that, he will also be rolling out his software as open source so that development of the entire project can be sped up. It took Cruz the better part of last year to build and develop an eye tracking computer interface that will work in tandem to the principles of electrooculography, which is the ability to measure the resting potential of the retina via electrodes that are located just beside the eyes. It will not track eye movements with the accuracy level of a high tech contact lens or video tracking system, but is affordable enough to be effective in helping the disabled use a computer.
Currently, Cruz’s sensor glasses are able to track horizontal eye movements only, but I am quite sure this is set to change in due time.
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