Story highlights
UK scientist pioneers cost-effective headset that enables a wearer's eyes to control a computer
Neuroscientist, Dr Aldo Faisal has used components which can be bought in a shopping mall
Faisal hopes to use technology in combination with neurological science to help sufferers of disabilities
Take two video-game console cameras and one pair of horn-rimmed glasses and for around $30 you have a device that will allow you to control a computer or, potentially, even a wheelchair with your eyes.
Previously, if you wanted to buy similar eye-tracking equipment it would have cost you upwards of $8,000. Now, scientists in London have pioneered a device, the GT3D, using components anyone of us can buy from the shopping mall.
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The breakthrough could help millions of people suffering from Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s, muscular dystrophy and, potentially, opens the door to a new era of hands-free computers, allowing us to use them without a mouse, keyboard or touch screen.
For the lead researcher Dr Aldo Faisal, a neuroscientist at Imperial College in London, the new device only came about because of his obsession with disassembling gadgets.
“I like to play with gadgets and was playing with a popular video-game console,” he said. “I hacked it and discovered it was very fast and better than any webcam for movement. Actually, it was so fast that I found we could record eye movement with it.”
Tracking eye movement is no mean feat. Our eyes moves 10 to 20 times a second, so a standard webcam or even film camera will miss most eye movements and where we are looking. As such, it is perhaps no surprise commercial eye-tracking devices are so expensive.