The Eyetribe eye-tracker

The EYETRIBE
This compact and sleek eye-tracker is currently the only device with software for  the Mac. If you want one you need to join the line as this Swedish (Copenhagen) company releases them in batches. When your device has shipped you access links to the software (SDK) through your EyeTribe  account page. 

Keyboard shortcuts – enter KeyCue

It’s useful to have a starting point when looking at Assistive Technologies (AT). We will work initially using two assumptions. Let’s consider as a baseline users with limited use of their hands, certainly those with little finger dexterity remaining. They can press a key, but typing is best performed using their eye-tracker and on-screen keyboard (Optikey or Click2Speak).

I’m waiting for my eyetribe™ tracker to arrive with its associated software, so for the moment I will deal with AT software components rather than workflows. A working knowledge of various apps capabilities brings a lightbulb moment when we realise how we might use them within our unique situation.

The Mission – Access & Control

Look at inspirational individuals like Gal Sont.

Their dogmatic refusal to be cowed, to take the hand dealt them, shuffle then replay it is admirable. Gal (a developer – PC man) has fashioned an on-screen keyboard that can be controlled through an eye-tracker. What’s more he is giving it away for free. Not only has this happened in Israel, Julius Sweetland (another PC developer driven by altruism¹) is doing much the same here in the UK. Doesn’t that make you want to jump on your chair and clap?

Sitting on the edge of a wet mud-hole

Hiram Salvini has a serious case of ALS. He can’t move or talk and uses his eyes to type words into a computer, which then speaks for him. Source: Photo by Richard Gwin.

There is no escaping it, this disease is a bummer, ask Professor Steven Hawking, he’s lived with it for around 50 years. Most of us have a clue what’s around the corner just before we get there, but the news may have come out of the blue. Either way, your keyboard smokes driving Google to provide its version of a crystal-ball to paw over.  The end-game becomes apparent – this disease has the potential to leave its host with only their eye muscles working unaffected. Some end, and what a game.

The MND crowd tend to be stoics to their toenails, they plan for the worst whilst hoping for the best. That would be for a cure of course (there isn’t one – yet). Yet we are defined not by what happens to us, but how we respond to fortune, be good or ill.