[plug] [Slightly-OT] Computer for Paralysed

[Craig Ringer]

On Thu, 2005-09-15 at 08:37 +0000, simon wrote:
> Jonathan Young (jonathan at pcphix.com) wrote:
> > On 9/15/2005, "Chris Caston" <caston at arach.net.au> wrote:
> >
> > >Yes but how about we try and build him a robotic exo-skeleton?
> > >That would be even better.
> >
> >
> > Careful!
> >
> > Next someone will refer to Stephen Hawking and the serious advice will
> > come to an end...
> >
> 
> Actually, has anyone thought about starting a project around this sort of
> stuff? Maybe not for a robotic exoskeleton (:roll:) but input devices etc.....
> I can imagine having some way to move the mouse pointer (chin? eyes?) and
> speech recog would go a long way........

That sort of stuff is around. Chin controls / head wands (for keys) have
been around for ages. AFAIK there's also quite a bit of research going
into using lasers to track eye and head movements, etc.

Personally, Tim, I'd advise your friend to contact a disabled group, as
they're quite likely to have investigated many of the options and know
what the good and bad ones are. If nothing else, it's a start. Don't
rule out Windows either - for one thing, if it does the job then who's
to argue. For another, learning another OS when trying to overcome some
rather larger problems might not be the most fun in the world. That
said, if the offerings in (eg) GNOME really are that much better, then
sure ... it'd be silly not to test it out.

--
Craig Ringer