Let Your Pupils Do the Typing

New submitter s.mathot writes: Researchers from France and the Netherlands have developed a way to—literally—write text by thinking of letters. (Academic paper [open access], non-technical blog, YouTube video.) This technique relies on small changes in pupil size that occur when you covertly (from the corner of your eye; without moving your eyes or body) attend to bright or dark objects. By presenting a virtual keyboard on which the 'keys' alternate in brightness, and simultaneously measuring the size of the eye's pupil, the technique automatically determines which letter you want to write; as a result, you can write letters by merely attending to them, without moving any part of your body, including the eyes.

Comments

Re:Is this really new?

[Martin Blank]

Hawking still uses a system activated by a muscle in his cheek, one of the few over which he still has some level of control, which is then detected by an IR sensor in his glasses. Earlier versions used a small joystick while he still had some control over a few fingers (or maybe it was just one), but the system has been adapted as he's lost more and more control.

This system might allow him to continue working even if he loses the last vestiges of control over his facial muscles.