ConnSENSE

Closing The Gap Resources

R. J. Cooper

Hi all,

It's me, RJ again, tech developer for special needs. Just got back from the annual (and much fun) Closing The Gap conference and wanted to touch base with y'all.

I've been waiting for 10 years now for the 'promise' of eye-gaze to become a reality. Several companies have been working on it all along the way. At the conference I got to try one of them, using their updated model. I was pretty impressed! And I'm not easily impressed ;-) It tracked me well (which, if you hold your head perfectly still, the others do a reasonably good job also). But even better, I was able to move my head around, at least 6" in each direction, and it still worked!

It's called the Quick Glance 2 SH and is made by EyeTech Digital Systems at http://www.eyetechds.com . That's the 'up' side. The 'down' side is that the retail on the unit is $6480 and it requires a PC running Windows 98 or above, at 800MHz or better, and a Firewire port (many laptops have one, but desktops usually require an internal card available from many sources for about $40).

They have a less expensive model, the "B", which only costs $4480, and is great for people that can hold their head still, like those with ALS.

The system consists of 2 monitor-mounted IR emitters (2" square) and a movable camera (3" square).

I've tried several systems before and this was the first time I could truly move my head in an anywhere-near-to-a-person-with-CP way, and achieve consistent and controllable results.

I accomplished mouse clicks by blinking (long enough) and by dwell (hovering). As I said before, I was impressed.

By the way, I have no affiliation with the company. I just wanted to pass along what I considered as exciting news. Of course, like you, I would love to see the price lower in the future. But for some, this may be the only way they can do things.

Well, enough hyping some other company's product ;-)