Gadgets designed by those who are aimed to make life easier and more interesting for disabled people, sometimes unveil new course for hi-tech industries. The most recent gadget that stands at origin of computing devices for disabled is a latest concept cursor manipulator. This light detector attached to one’s spectacles can act as good as a well-known computer mouse and was designed to substitute it completely. The Wink Technology which is in its core can also be, by the way, very handy to all computer users, probably even entice them all.
Jedlicka Institute for Disabled Children, Czech Republic, has become a domain for the gadget’s developers. To make a computer controllable for handicapped persons, researchers and students of this institute have placed a camera locked close to user’s eye. It is programmed to detect eye’s behavior – left, right, up and down movements, and moments when the eye is closed for calculated periods of time. This was the hardest thing to do as the involved students and other researchers say. The device can not only be eye-controlled, but can also perceive head movements. Data from the detector is sent to a control unit and generated into orders computer will understand. Overall cursor on the monitor receives all the commands and follows the way eyeball shows. Shortly closed eye is interpreted as a click, and prolonged eye closing means a double click for eye-controlled computer. Now gadget is completely useable, makes all the computer and Internet resources manageable and is compatible with any PC model. Device is synchronized via USB host.Wink Technology is unfortunately not the cheapest one. This eye-controlled cursor manipulator will cost slightly more than 1500 Euros but it was said that government and charitable foundations are willing to cover at least a part of the price for disabled children, because it finally offers them Internet resources and computer experience, which means better education and profitable employment.
