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Paralyze
New technology for those that are paralyzed.
08/26/98 5 p.m.

Ron Heagy always is on the move, despite a spinal injury that paralyzed him from the neck down. He shifts freely between his love of the outdoors and his work as a writer, painter and speaker.

Heagy struggles to type with a mouthstick and keyboard. However, that is about to change. A new headset with low infrared cameras let Heagy's eyes do the work his hands can not.

One camera reads eye movement, the other head movement. When this information comes together, it has astonishing results. Heagy can move the cursor on his computer with his eyes and click on information just as if he was using a computer mouse.

"If I want to click on search, I close my eyes and it clicks once. I open, now it's in search. So I'm moving the mouse around with my eyes or head," Heagy says.

Jim [Richardson], inventor of the camera, helped to build it after an accident paralyzed his cousin.

"I looked at my cousin and said `well, what can he use,' and the thing that he could use was his eyes," he says.

Inventors hope the product opens new worlds to those who can't type or talk. [Richardson]'s cousin recently tried the computer for the first time.

"He kept picking hello! hello! hello! He just kept saying it again and again. It was really great. It was very exciting for all of us," [Richardson] says.

The infrared camera headsets sell for about $2,500 and can be used with any PC format computer.



original Source



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