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.
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