As computers have evolved, they have gone from 'nice to haves' to 'must haves' for making modern life possible. They have impacted our basic communication (skype,twitter,snapchat), commerce (Amazon, Kijiji, Online vendors),news and social networks (Facebook, google plus, linkedin) as well as our leisure activities (gaming, netflix).

For those who have different abilities (disabilities, dis-function ) the common way of interfacing with the modern computer (with a mouse and keyboard, or with their hands on a touch device) may not be available or too awkward to be useful. Even for those who normally have full access to the devices injury, illness or even age can make use of these key tools of life unavailable.

Having both witnessed and experienced disability first hand, I decided to devote some of my free-time and skills in technology development to create tools to help others. Thus I wrote the FaceMouse software. Using off-the-shelf hardware that was originally created to control computer games (the Microsoft Kinect), and modified and augmented open-source code,the FaceMouse software allows a user to control a computers mouse just by looking and blinking to triggering clicks.

Configuring the FaceMouse software is as simple as looking at your computer and pressing a key four times. On each keypress, the program registers the position of your eyes, nose,forehead and chin and then creates a model that can be used to simply control the computer mouse. That's it.

Where you look, is where the mouse moves to. When your head stops, the mouse stops.

You can click the mouse simply by closing your eyes. Single click, Double click. Grabbing objects and releasing.

The software is fully configurable, allowing the user to choose which eye controls which mouse button, and what each length of click means.

For those with no physical disabilities, the software allows the user to augment their abilities when using this software. I have used the software to play games simply by looking.

For those with disabilities, this inexpensive technology can be truely life-changing.

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Want to know more?

email: IWantMoreInfo@facemouse.ca