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Mouse Begone: Use Head Movements And IR Instead
Gonzodoggy writes: "Saw this on my local news last night. There's a company in Oregon that is trying to eliminate the mouse as we know it. The company is called Naturalpoint. Basically, you place a reflective dot on your forehead or, for laptop users, a plastic ring on your finger. Then when you move your head or your finger, the mouse goes where you point. The demo on the news showed a gamer making the game look where he looked, allowing him to keep both hands on the keyboard" Looks like a cool idea, but very Windows only for now. So I guess I'll have to rig up a trackball underfoot, and just fool my housemates into thinking I was controlling the cursor with my changing glances.
Gyropoint makes a wireless mouse (GyroMouse) that uses digital gyroscopes for movement. You just hold the mouse and use your wrist to move the pointer. You could build the gyroscopes into a glove or mount them on your head if you wanted...
well SHIT man, my wrist is so strong from, ahem, 'workin out'I think I'd have to agree
With a 24" beasty on your desk, trust me - you'll be moving yer head all over the place!
Hang a disco ball over your cube and just beam the ring into it... Have everyone in your office yelling in no time! :)
I sneezed and deleted my C:\WINDOWS directory!
I suppose you could call your honey 'boss'.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
ROFL timothy!
rig up a trackball underfoot...
Sounds like an old prank that my older brother played on me...
on our old atari 800xl, he wrote a program that would "identify" us by putting our hand in the cartridge slot. All he really did, though, was set it up so that if he was pushing down one key when he ran the program, it would say it was one person. If he pushed down a different one, it would say someone else.
To me, it was some bewitchment on our atari.
Inconceivable!
I can just imagine using this during a hay fever spell:
Me: Ahhh, ahhhhh, ahhhhhhhh-CHHHHHOOOOOOOO!
Neighbor: Gesundheit.
Guy down hall: Aw, frell! What happened to the server?!
We're not scare-mongering/This is really happening - Radiohead
This sig intentionally left blank.
> i'm pretty sure that's never been seen before
You could get these for the old Sage (later Stride) computers. These were 68000 machines running the UCSD system back in the early 1980s
Yeah, try doing a digital painting with that.
"Hey, J05H, why are you twitching?"
"I'm trying to smudge this part of the picture."
Just doesn't work, gimme a good Wacom any day!
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
My professors used to get pr0n on their video projection systems in front of the whole class. That was always fun.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
It'd be cool if it worked with an off-the-produce Banana sticker, instead of a high-tech dot.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
This unit'll make it tough to listen to any music with decent beat and use your computer at the same time. ``Sorry boss. How could I have known that listening to Nine Inch Nails would delete all the files in the source directories?''
--
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Ok, so the movements from your head correspond to the movements on the screen, presumably a FPS. Sounds like a great idea, but of course, the sensitivity of your movement needs to be amplified, like a mouse, so you can turn all the way around (180 deg.) without being the Exorcist chick.
:)
That's all fine and well, but many people have problems with motion sickness with FPS's - the generally accepted theory afaik is that if since your perceived vision doesn't correspond to your body movements, you're likely under the influence of a poison and start to feel ill. The only time you think you're moving when you're not tends to be under the influence of a lot poison - drink too much alcohol, room spins, makes you vomit, etc.
Imagine how much it would screw you up to turn your head 10 degrees and do a 360 - I imagine that this wouldn't be that far from normal usage, because you still need to be able to see the screen while you're doing all this head-wagging. Now you don't just have the discrepancy between movement and sight - you actually are moving your head and seeing your FOV change, but in a wildly exaggerated way, in both speed and accelleration.
I don't normally have any game sickness, but I think that would make me puke pretty quick. Oh yeah - also, picture what RSI would be like in a world where people used their heads as pointing devices instead of their hands
-lx
Wasn't there a story on this or something similar last week?
You say you want a revolution....
You call your boss honey?
Doesn't everybody?
This is not going to make it easy to click off the window downloading pr0n right as the boss walks in...
"No really honey, I wasn't looking at her, it just popped on the screen by a virus."
"uh huh"
I remember a serial device that you could get for your computer that did the same thing. This was back in 85-87 time frame. I know Stride Micro resold them to use with their Stride series boxes. You attached this box to the top of your terminal and it bounced an infrared signal off of a holographic patch you stuck on your head. It looked at the reflectance level. This then was used to control your cursor. I never bought one as I couldn't justify it. I think it was between $150 and $200, but my memory is foggy on stuff that far back.
The mouse is getting close to 40 now, going grey, loosing its hair. I can't wait until it retires. These days my hand aches after spending a day mousing. Much as I dispise M$, I like the fact that my StinkPad has one of those little pointers in the middle which lets me move the cursor without taking my hands from the keyboard. Now if I can get a Heads Up Display with eye tracking built in, I can get eye strain.
Which reminds me, have these people done a study on repetative stress injury for this head-tracking tech? I would imagine that there a lot of people out there who would suffer greatly from this kind of tech (a friend/fellow sysadmin is a paraplegic, but capable of head motion).
This technology sounds also sounds like a fast way to eyestrain/neck problems. How many of you out there don't wear glasses? I have enough problems staring at VDUs all day without having to tightly control the location that I am pointing my head/eyes.
Might not be so good for those late night sessions ;)
Seriously, though, what if you need to attend to something which is independant from the computer? Like if your toast is burning, and you need to whip your head around to see why it smells like your pantry exploded? What if you were lining up a shot with a sniping scope in Counterstrike just then? No good!
-Leo
Tribes 2 and sniping with this thing... hmmmmm. Would be interesting to see how accurate it is, I'd be worried that simple natural movements would cause me to end up shooting way off.. having to keep -perfectly still- while trying to aim at someone might be a little much.
BilldaCat
Best one from my college years:
;-) A few keys here and there...
xmodmap a lab computer from across campus.
Start slowly at first, of course...
--- witty signature
While the head movements aren't very precise, the eye move ments are. Here at Clemson, in the VR lab, they're working on eye tracking, and form what I've seen, it's very effective. Instead of movine your head to move the mouse or your head to move the cross hiars, could you think of how great it would be to be able to just have your eyes look at something, and be right on target to start firing. Then those little movements that we see out of the corners of our eyes while playing Counter strike and Half life would really turn into more kills. Along with this, think of how it would be just simply being able to use the keyboard to play CS, while your eyes did the target ing for you.
One fun prank with mice is to go to the computer lab and switch the cables for two adjacent computers. You sit at one computer with a mouse and wait for someone to sit next to you. Your mouse controls their cursor, and their mouse controls your cursor. You start out by watching what they are doing and trying to mimic their movements (and don't laugh!) Then you start randomly sliding one direction consistently, or moving to a different place on the screen whenever they look away. See how long it takes for them to figure it out!
Another fun time was when we discovered that by default our lab had X permissions for anyone in the lab to connect to any display. It was great fun sending "dialog boxes" to random users that told them weird things to do to "fix" the system. For example, "WARNING! Monitor Overheat. Your monitor is overheating, please turn it off and then back on before continuing." Or make a fake "ICQ" type message that purports to come from a cute girl also in the room - see if you can get the victim to go up to the cute girl and talk to her!
This is actually a pretty dumb idea. People move their eyes more than their heads. I have a 21" monitor and my head doesn't move at all as I look on the screen. What are they gonna do, have a prosthesis to prevent the eyeballs to move inside their sockets???
Had the demo shown some geek looking at PrOn whilst "hands-free", there would have been a serious business opportunity there
>Uh, when you look around on a monitor, do you >regularly move your head extremely fast?
That's because your usually moving your *eyes*, not your entire head. I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to stick thier little reflective dot on my eyeball...
that part in THHGTG...
"For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive -- you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular ependiture, of course, but meant you had to sit infuriatingly still is you wanted to keep listening to the same program."
truth is stranger than fiction, right?
this is just a placeholder till i send back my real sig from the future.
Alright, now replacing the mouse with something that looks wherever you look is certainly cool, but this is not a promising solution. When I am using my computer, most of the time my head is stationary. It is my EYES that do the moving. It's going to get very tiring to precisely position my entire scull every time I want to move the mouse.
A better approch would be to follow my eye-movement in relation to my head and the monitor. This would require some pretty fancy cameras to get the detail level one would need, but it would be really cool, don't you think?
http://kered.org
Sorta like how dust puppy from user friendly plays quake =:-)
---
Play Six Pack Man. I
soon we will have to wear letters on our foreheads to identify ourselves in multi-user set-ups, collabarative efforts between two people with similar names might require different color letters, hence the scarlet letter...
Maybe Listers H was related to this...
Xmouse has been available for Win95 and later since the OS came out. It was in the Powertoys Collection, along with deskmenu and other useful little toys.
It doesn't seem to be available for Win2k, but TweakUI seems to be doing most of the PowerToys functions now.
dave
I wonder if this technology will suffer from the same drawbacks of those gloves for the PSX and SNES gaming systems, which was that they were fantastic when used on a TV the size of a wall (like in all the demos) but on a standard 51cm it was a dog to try and control... I like the idea of playing a 3d shooter with a wall projected image and this tech ;)
This is a bad idea. I can't see how this wouldn't cause you an Repetive Stress Injury (RSI) to your neck. Especially if you have a large screen (21" +) monitor. You just don't screw with the nerves in your neck. It's not natural to move your head all around when you are looking at a computer screen. Do you do this when you are watching a movie? Do you do this when you are reading a book?
No. It's your EYES that move and THAT'S what needs to be tracked. Maybe a pair of reflective contact lenses? That would be too much trouble. Actually, the pupils are naturally reflective (hence red-eye in photographs). Could they key on those? That would seem most logical. The eyes are very good at tracking.
Execute? [Y/N] _
Sage computer that made 68000 based computers had one of these years ago. They put a reflective dot on the end of a straw. You stick the straw on your ear and could point.
>do you regularly move your head extremely fast?
I don't need to because I can just move my eyes. Big difference.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Since you usually don't swing your whole head around to look around your screen, this is gonna cause a whole lot of neck pain. Too bad, cool idea.
Task: Develop a driver for the Cypress EZ USBFX that works in conjunction with the system USB driver stack.
If you are interested in joining this team or have suggestions please email
The head/neck wasn't designed for many, rapid, precise movements all day long[...]
Well, actually, the lips and tongue would seem to offer the most axes of motion in the general area, and judging by many people I know they can be run continuously.
Surely, the indignity of sitting making monkey faces into a computer monitor for hours on end is preferable to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, or in this case perhaps a sprained neck from playing Quake, as well as for ease and precise control alone. Though it might not help the public "geek" image much.
Imagine the new dawn that could be coming; the mouth contortions proud young computer users would display on greeting as a demonstration of their lingual dexterity; Tourette Syndrome sufferers no longer discriminated aganst in a world of functional facial tics and involuntary noises; special oral piercings and jewelry designed to give better tracking and S/N ratios all the rage.
Interface these to cellphones for WAP control, and there would be the added bonus of watching drivers or passers-by providing entertainment for others in nearly all modern social situations.
------------
CitizenC
but what selfrespecting geek is going to wear one of those dot thingies on thier head?
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
Who moves there head around to look at stuff on their computer monitor. Try this out for five seconds and you'll see how annoying this is. A successful device will need to go off eye movements.
With regard to this systems use in first-person shooters, turning / looking would be quite hard.
What if you quickly want to execute a 180 degree turn? Do you whip your head around and then back again (I can just see a new wave of computer-related injuries)? Or do you have to look at the edge of the screen and wait for the view to turn around?
It wouldn't be much of an improvement over keyboard-only quake. Anyone that figures out how to use a mouse with a FPS quickly jumps ahead of most keyboard users.
This would be good in MechWarrior though. Your targeting crosshair would follow the enemy 'mech you're looking at on the screen.
First time I saw that technology was on the Atari VCS 2600... the controller was called Headmounted controller or Thought Controller IIRC, but as soon as was demoed it quickly fell in Vaporware territory.
I hate to agree with davecrazy but...
Anybody else notice they said hi to /. readers? I think this might end up hurting our necks or hands.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
Technically very few parts of the body were designed to do many, rapid, pricise movements repetively. You will have problems with the neck and your wrists/hands/arms.
The underlieing technology doesn't seem the complicate. I think I/R triangulation is what they you. I think a glove setup might work better. To press a button you'd just click touch your finger to your palm and the I/R device would be on the top of your hand.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
Just what I need... Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (carpel tunnel of the neck)!
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The Big News Page
Is this like the radio in HGTTG where you can wave your hand in the air to tune in a station... but you have to keep your hand in that position to keep the station, otherwise when you move the signal will change again...
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"Defenestration" is to throw out of a window; what's a word for throwing 'Windows' out of something?
Posted on March 18th
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/18/153820 2&mode=thread
Nothing like a bit of internal communication, huh.
this could be a viable option. but imagine playing quake with mouselook on using this... look to the right... your screen follows but you're looking to the right of your monitor. move your head to look back at the screen... you're right back to where you started. How would you overcome this little quirk other than developing really really good perephrial vision?
--Ks9
I turn my head to look around a corner in Quake, and suddenly... I am looking away from the monitor. This kind of gadget has been around for years in numerous incarnations (Even for the original Nintendo Entertainment System.) and always fails for the same reason: there is only one, small, stationary screen.
Beyond that, if you are sitting in one place, constantly moving one's head around to view parts of a screen is a bit annoying.
Cybernet Systems Corp makes a similar system, except it tracks your head (side-to-side, up-and-down movements) without the need for a dot on your forehead. Uses a normal webcam (windows only, sorry). So its nice and cheap. Visit the web site for more info about how this can be used in a game. (Eye tracking doesn't work at all in an action game, but shifting your head side to side does).
Ron Hay
Turing Machinist
Cybernet Systems Corp
Current project: Edge of Extinction -- free massive-multiplayer game. Release in a couple of days.
Wintermute, I'd like to talk to you about your experiences with this technology. A friend of mine is now C5, and I'd like to get him back on the net. Drop me a note if you have a moment. andy@lee-turk.com
And a mass "oooo I don't feel so good" once in a hour...
--
Segmentation fault. Ore dumped.
so, does that mean that when i am looking at nice pictures at home that my browser window is going to be jumping all around?
"I don't need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines." - Mr. Furious, Mystery Men
Oh goodie! My wrists are already shot. Lets start working on my neck now.
I wonder why India didn't come up with this technology first you would think a lot of them are already equipt with the appropriate dot.
A dot on your forhead or ring on your right hand? This must be the mark of the beast!! And the beast is....the computer??
Boston College has also been involved with this type of research. For more info, check out http://www.cs.bc.edu/~gips/CM/
Didn't we see this before, only instead of IR, it used RF?? Anywho... I'd love to see someone in the middle of CS or Quake bobbing their head around with one of these... Prolly look like someone in anaphalactic(sp?) shock. heh.
--Chemguru
MAjor price difference though. $1000 for the older technology,
Evan - needs to hit preview before submitting
At least until they can put a sensor on my eyes. Personally, I don't move my head enough for this to work. Of course, it could be just me. All alone. By myself. An outcast. Hey, you don't need to rub it in! Why is everybody always picking on me?
Is it just me or does the wand look exactly like a Photon Microlight?
http:\\www.photonlight.com
Great little design, I guess it was bound to be copied.
India has had this 'technology' for centuries. As this photo proves.
--
Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
> but then again, while I'm reading a webpage, my mouse would continually
> be hovering over the text I'm reading.
Interesting point. But would it be true. After all, any object that doesn't move around on the retina vanishes. I'd read about his in a couple of text books, but never experienced it until I was trying to out-stare a dog. We were gazing at each other for several minutes when slowly my vision started to fade to grey. The scene on my retna hadn't changed, so it was compensating for what it thought was an optical artifact.
So if your eye-tracking mouse was so good that it didn't shift or shimmer as you moved your eyes, I think it would vanish after a couple of minutes. Only to reappear in inverse colours the moment you look away from the screen.
--
Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
A net connected app, the people place reflective dots in certain strategic positions on their bodies, and voila! Let's dance (or whatever ;-)
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
I had a similar problem with my touch screen Windows only driver.
.oO0Oo.
I got an old 486 ans used it on that. I then connected to my other machines via VNC and was able to use the touch sensitive bit with Unix & plan9.
Another benefit is you can use any windows compatible VGA card too.
If you use soemthing beefier than a 486 you could run WeirdX (http://www.jcraft.com/weirdx/) which is a Java X Client
Another benefit is playing mp3s in Windows so you don't use those valuable cycles - no more choppy sound!
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
This is ridiculous. Input devices need to move towards the more natural: stylus on screen, voice commands, eyeball tracking... not the bizarre.
When do we ever use our heads for anything like this? It's completely unnatural. The mouse is bad enough. My neck gets tired just thinking about this possibility.
-Erik
I'm just not certain I could bring myself to purchase a control device called HEADMASTER. What would the neighbors think? :P
--- Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscripti catapultas habebunt
"Basically, you place a reflective dot on your forehead "
I want to see how the marketing people deal with this little issue.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
...this ignores the research being done to control the pointer with your eyes. I've seen demos where the pointer will follow where you look, and you can blink to click. Very strange stuff indeed, but nicely functional.
Yes, you're quite right. I actually live in Corvallis where this technology is being created, and it was quite funny watching late night news at 11pm.... they actually had a story!
Anyway, both the demo and most of the info seem to imply that it's primary use would be games (read: Quake III and other FPS), since it adds a new level of excitement and realism. It's true that just doing day-to-day running of the operating system would be both painful and boring with it, although this isn't to say that nobody gets repitive movement injuries from using a mouse... also another use of the technology would be for those unable to use normal mice due to some sort of physical issue (no/disabled arms, etc.).
May I just comment on the fact that the hardware specs and device interface specs are just available on the site? Why bother with: "This will be only Windows software for now", when it's quite easy to write a driver for this stuff?
Admitted, I've not written a driver before for Linux or BSD yet, but I assume it shouldn't be too hard if the specs are public available.
At least this makes it quite a lot easier than to write a driver for nvidea chipsets.
This is a replacement signature.
So people can look forward to suffering permenant brain damage instead of carpal tunnel syndrome as they flail their heads around trying to move a pointer on the screen?
The big bonus is, you'ld have both hands on the keyboard.
here is a MCSE demonstrating the new windos XP "Head Up" interface.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
The ad had a head shot of a guy sitting at his computer (a Mac... all 128k) with this thing like Rio headphones on his head. He was wearing glasses and his tie was positioned like it was being windblown over his shoulder. And he looked dorky.
It is possible that the technology has progressed so that this type of contraption is useful, but tracking head movements are a bad way to input x:y data. Tracking eye movements is a much better idea.
When typing this comment, I moved my head hardly any, but my eyes were all over the place.
Didn't NASA do some experiments once where they were using eye movements to operate the controls of space craft. I think they gave up because of the difficulty of stopping the astronauts from looking at things they weren't supposed to i.e.
"don't look at the big red button which vents all the oxygen into outer space."
"which big red button? oh sh..." .
This story may be apocryphal.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
...that whenever I use this device and a Hindu looks over my shoulder to see what I'm doing the computer starts acting whacky?
(Ok so that's borderline racist, but how could I resist?)
-Tyler
Q: "What would Marilyn Monroe be doing if she were alive today?"
A: "Clawing at the lid of her coffin."
Happy people make bad consumers.
This is the same thing the Apache (tank killing helicopter) uses for the 30MM. It's already tried and proven technology.
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
UNIX - Not just for Vestal Virgins anymore
Playing Solitaire.
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
Naturalpoint's slogan: "We're the dot on your forehead."
Bren.
Bren.
I want to look like a twitching metal patient when I am using my computer..... this will give me more time to poke myself in the eye!!!
ender-iii
ender-iii
the power glove!
"it's so bad" - The Wizzard
ender-iii
ender-iii
Depending on what color the reflective dot is, some folks might assume you were betrothed to someone....
I happen to be someone who actually uses a Headmaster with a piezo-electric switch (I have a disability). Headmasters have been around since at least the late 80's, but I think they use ultrasound, not IR. I've tried some IR devices, but they're not as precise as the Headmaster. The Headmaster is pretty intuitive, but my neck does get stiff sometimes. Check out my webpage, written entirely with a Headmaster: http://www.pacer.org/employment/index.htm
Winter
It seems a bit unnatural that you have to look away from a screen to move a mouse :) But the other ideas are very practical...Aiming your finger is nice for those carpal tunnel syndromers
"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
Why do people keep trying to do this? it's not gonna work. The first slew of lawsuits from neck injuries will put any company out of business...it's as stupid as making full VR computer navigation goggles, etc....just dumb!
"This is where god would go if he wanted to get off blow!"
It would be a completely unsuitable interface for Quake, because turning your head beyond the edge of the screen would not do anything.
In Quake, you use the mouse to simulate 360 degrees of motion, but your field of vision is probably only about 30 degrees.
I meant that it would reduce RSI for office workers... Frequent gamers still have wrist braces and Advil in their futures.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
While it has been a boon to those with disabiliies, a gadget like this for the rest of us would probably reduce RSI quite a bit. As much as people complain about keyboards, unergonomic mouse techniques are probably responsible for at least as many injuries.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Sneezing might cause a bit of a problem...
why? forty-two.
I can move pikachu with my mind!
The real problem with eye-movement-based systems is that, when you're looking at something, your eye is often focused on a point near the object, and not the object itself.
That's why this technology is currently only being used by people with disabilities, and the "buttons" are huge.
What are the odds of getting whiplash after getting fragged from behind?
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
>Basically, you place a reflective dot on your forehead or, for laptop users, a plastic ring on your finger.
I know it's a stretch, but I just have to add:
Rev.13:16: And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Adds a whole new dimension to one-click shopping, eh?
There was a researcher at CMU (of all places) who developed a system that used a small camera pointed at the user to track where they were looking based on the pupil of the eyes. The relative width and height and distance from the center point between the eyes gave it the position the person was looking at. A simple smoothing algorithm and a calibration utility allowed it to work without absolute reference points. The biggest problems were with tracking the head (it needed to zoom in on the eyes) and keeping even lighting. If you sit still enough, then a Quickcam (or similar) may work (it did not need high resolution, just a good look at the eyes). Also, the eye mussels evolved to do the quick, fine motions that the neck mussels do not handle well, you do not need a little dot (which needs to be shared between users, and can be lost), and does not depend on specialized hardware. Pax Draconis
I just can't help but wonder what this is going to do when I start to nod off in the office. Head whips forward from the back of the chair and BOOM goes the harddrive....
Papa Legba come and open the gate
I once saw an interview with somebody using one - they found it easier than a normal mouse for average (business) work, and alright for games like StarCraft. Clicking was done with your foot (too bad it wasn't by tilting your head forward into a blunt object). The only real complaint he had was when playing Quake: he couldn't look around 'cause then he couldn't aim - so he got fragged. And he couldn't aim because he had to look around to see if people were coming from other directions - he got fragged again!
I can't be karma whoring - I've already hit 50!
SIG: HUP
How about IR reflective contact lenses?
What happens when you turn your head 90 degrees so you can look next to yourself in a game. Sounds pretty limiting for gaming, unless you have a nice 4 monitor setup.
The alignment process can't be too comfortable if you have something attached to your head. You can't move around in your chair.
I'd much rather have something that can watch my eyeballs, but then again, while I'm reading a webpage, my mouse would continually be hovering over the text I'm reading.
. . .
You MUST have Javascript to purchase products from this site.
Umm... you must not use JavaScript if you want my business.
This is slightly off-topic, but it is interesting. Here at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth we have a program called SHARE that deals with computer accesability to disabled people. They have been currently testing a model of a mouse device that operates solely on brainwave, or in conjunction with eye movement. Its called the "Mind Mouse" and details can be found on this page (near the bottom) http://www.share.umassd.edu/share/products/product s.htm
While I am not directly involved, Several of my friends have tested it, and have had limited success. It induces a terrible headache, but It does work fairly well.
It definitely needs some tweaking, but I believe brainwave controlled input devices will be available in the next decade.
The big trouble with dumb bastards is that they are too dumb to believe there is such a thing as being smart.
I don't want the cursor where I'm looking, I want it where it's supposed to be!
It appears as if they're interested in having people help out to develop Linux drivers for the TrackIR. From their Discussion Forum:
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Title: Welcome! (probably want to read me)
Author: warren blyth
Date: 2001-03-20 22:03:15-08
ahoy all,
In order to expand the user base for the trackIR, wed like to focus on developing OS device drivers. Were trying to pull together a group of interested linux programmers to develop a driver for the Cypress EZ USBFX that works in conjunction with the system USB driver stack.
Once you express interest well open up a new page on this site devoted to the effort. We plan to use existing tools like sourceforge.com, mail lists, and discussion groups to coordinate efforts.
It's true that if an object doesn't move around on the retina it vanishes. But your eye is constantly making infinitesmal adjustments, called micronystagmus (probably the plural is actually micronystagmi), that are totally unconscious and imperceptible. These adjustments occur on the order of 50 times per second over a distance of about 1 minute of arc. Try as you might to stare down a dog (or whatever), micronystagmus will maintain enough jitter to keep the neurons from "tiring out", and you therefore wouldn't see things fade out to gray.
The way this effect is actually observed is to attach specially constructed contact-lens-like objects directly to the eyeball so that the visual target moves precisely in conjunction with the pupil in spite of micronystagmus.
The aftereffect you describe is, in fact, a demonstration of the fact that micronystagmus is occurring. Probably everybody has done that experiment where you look at a big red square for a while and then look over to a blank white sheet and see a green afterimage. But in order for that to happen, you had to be staring directly at the red square for a period of time long enough to fatigue certain neurons -- yet the red square didn't disappear while you were staring at it, did it?
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
...I hear the company will offer a dot that you attach to the end of your male member to control the mouse cursor. Particularly useful for hands-free operation of porn sites. Gives a whole new meaning to "pointing device" if you ask me :-)
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
If I saw someone sitting at their desk with a dot on their forehead, I'd be screaming "DUCK" and heading for cover myself.
I may have been watching too many movies.
Note: Above may not apply if you live in India.
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I suppose this will be helped by the fact that the mouse cursor moves with your head so your eyes can follow it, but I imagine it would be very eerie and hard to use. Turning the tracking on and off would be hard too, I don't necessarily want the mouse to move wherever I look; It will probably be very hard to get used to only moving my head when I want to move the cursor...
While great for some, I find it easier to flick my mouse than risk a neck injury.
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
when i read the first sentence about a company "trying to eliminate the mouse as we know it" i wondered to what purpose would killing all the mice in the world be? Of course, then I read the next line and realized my own ignorance
Try holding your finger in front of your monitor and see if you can hold it there for more than a few minutes. Touch screens are more intuitive, but they're useless for larger amounts of GUI work.
This is a horrible idea! I can't imagine having to move my head around this much. As a test run of how annoying this "innovation" would be try doing this: While you are using your computer don't move your eyes to look at different parts of the screen, move your entire head instead. This is exactly how you would use this device. After about two minutes of trying to do this you'll feel completely nauseous!
<HUMOR quality="bad">
On the brighter side this might be proof that the US economy is getting better: there are people starting to throw VC at just about anything again.
</HUMOR>
I agree. That would definately be useful, and cause no added stress whatsoever, since our eyes already track everything we do on a monitor.
I don't think that this would be very useful. The head/neck wasn't designed for many, rapid, precise movements all day long (say, at work). The hand/wrist/arm was. Besides, I'd much rather have repetitive stress in my write than in my neck.
Doesn't this take us back to the 0-click shopping patent?
can you imagine what the office of the future would look like? Lots of people with lighters, bobbing and shaking their heads and letting their eyes roll around.
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Um, is this your vision of heaven? Sounds more like hell, although I guess the PHBs will love all the Yes Men they get with such a system
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
I don't know if you were being facetious or not, but it seems like a pretty solid idea; anyways, at least as good as wearing headgear and scanning pages like a dog watching traffic.
Imagine a touch sensitive surface that mounts on the roof of your mouth, which would respond to pressure from your tongue. (You could pop it on and off like a retainer) It would be discreet, and it'd be easy to adjust to, b/c anyone who knows how to talk already has pretty precise lingual control. Also, the tongue is one big muscle: doesn't tire fast.
What a ludicrous, fascinating idea. I bet this is the kind of thing Carl Sagan wrote about when he was baked . . . .
try walking around with your neck aching all day long.
no thanks.
The forehead thing is just wrong, though. I mean, I move my head all the time (to look to the side to see whats going on in the room), bop my head to music, etc...I really don't want these movements jumping my cursor around. Gaming with it would be a nightmare too. Rocket jump too much and you might end up with whiplash. How do you do a 360 turn at medium to low sensitivity? (You know, the type you lift up the mouse for now?)??
Oh well..
Yes! Force feedback dot-thingies. Then we can really be immersed in UT/Quake/Serious Sam. :)
HANS device anyone?
~V
Did anyone else get this image of Zaphod Beeblebrox having to hold his hand infuriatingly still to listen to news about himself on the sub-etha?
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Goodbye Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, welcome neck injuries, back injuries, headaches.
anonyminity
360 degrees of Karma
This is a lame invention, one that'll only leave you with a neck-stress injury. Besides, it's so unnatural. When you look at stuff, you don't move your neck unless it's a few angles away. When you view your monitor, the only thing you move are your eyeballs. Study this yourself on your computer now.
Mother nature never created our necks to move this often. Having wrist problems is bad enough. We don't need neck braces and a bunch of people on the street behaving like robots when they look at stuff.
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Did you just fart? Or do you always smell like that?
eTrade SUCKS
I think many many years ago there were more or less wearable mice.
I'm still waiting for the device that reads your thoughts and moves your mouse.... or opens up your web browser... and brings up slashdot or your favorite pr0n site... just by thinking about it
ooh and it even works when your boss comes by... it'll read your mind and just go away.. what a concept, can i patent this?
Agreed, but unfortunately this is what disabled people have had to deal with... $1,000 for a product just because, well, you have no choice!
Check out Headmaster Plus. I work in adaptive technology and this kind of stuff has been going on for a few years now.
Just bang your head on the desk twice in rapid succession. Most computer users do this a few times a day anyway.
How ridiculous.
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$ chown -R us:us yourbase
The idea of controlling something with head movements is not new. At least there are rumors that we Russians have successfully implemented it to control the rockets by means of magnet in pilot's helmet and magnetometer above.
But the pilots simply have no other means since they control the fighter with hands and feet, they are paid really high and they have no enough rockets to turn their heads every day.
We can imagine the pain in the neck which is much more terrible than any RSI. The problem of ergonomic control is being studied by us and we see no satisfactory methods for now. Even the AlphaGrip - the last cry of technofashion - seems inadequate.
We are Admin of FreeBSD. Windows is irrelevant. You will be assimilated.
I know that cursor movement has been defined, but how exactly does one click under this system? Do you just blink really fast or what?
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Bow before my sig, for it is good.
Serioulsy, they're not exactly thinking multitasking for us poor Linux geeks, are they? I imagine someone blinking for a double click while trying to enter some text without looking at the editor! :))
Linux *is* user friendly. It's not idiot-friendly or fool-friendly!
Which hurts your neck more, staring straight at a screen all day, never moving your head, only your eyes, or going outside and looking all around you, constantly moving your head as it was made to do? I could see your point if this were a VR helmet we were talking about and it was heavy.. but come on. Btw, I understand that you were making a joke.. it simply wasn't funny so I'm not treating it as such.
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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
During the census that was just completed, the census guys encountered nearly 30 different languages. You can't expect a diverse population of 1,000,000,000 people to all speak the same language :)
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-Tar Ciryatan, Angry Hermit-
and I quote, from naturalpoint.com... "Clicking is done with user defined Hot Keys, or Dwell Clicking for people with disabilities and others who want total hands free control. "
-Tar Ciryatan, Angry Hermit-
ahoy, like chancycat said, the trackIR is only 99 bucks. i'm pretty sure that's never been seen before. plus the software is highly customizable. most of the IR tracking products out there today are just plug and play, so all the nifty options and support are laudable. methinks. (source code samples are online, discussion forums, etc.)
ahoy, i just wanted to point out that the trackIR device tracks anything with the 3M reflective material on it (rings, shirt buttons, wrist bands, etc.). In fact I (work at ECT and) was trying to push an ad campaign where we encouraged people to get a piercing so they could use it to control their computer. (but... apparently this was toooo hip).
ahoy, just wanted to point out that the device is rather precise and tracks tiny head movements, so you DON'T have to look away from the screen. or whip your head around. (the head motion settings are on the "very precise" end of the software spectrum, while the wand is on the "very loose" end). anywhoooo. more later.
you should try it out. you don't have to look away from your monitor. tiny movements of the head translate to huge movements of the mouse. you can get from one side of your monitor to the other with less than a centimeter of movement. and you can adjust the sensitivity through the dandy software.
ahoy, just wanted to point out that the software has an option called "key activated clicking," so that the cursor doesn't move unless you hold down a key. lots of other hot keys too. and the ability to add customized hotkeys... (ECT employee)
Forehead... Right Hand... Internet banking, shopping, etc... The end is near!!! Read Revelations!
Kosh - Ambassador of the Vorlon Empire
A couple of years ago VW came out with a commercial for the jetta. The commercial is as follows:
Woman in Gym working with spring rope pushing her the front of her foot on the rope repetitively. Gentleman comes up next to her to work out and says, "Clutch Foot?". Womans says, "Yeah".
Think the same thing for natural point:
Woman in Gym working with neck machine pushing her head back and forth on the neck machine repitively. Gentleman comes up next to her to work out and says, "Natural Point Dot?". Womans says, "Yeah".
You don't click by blinking. You can use a hotkey, the mouse button, an external switch or dwell based clicking where if the cursor rests on an object for a definable time it clicks. You can also define a hot key that must be pressed to move the cursor.