March 30: A new computer game designed by Imperial College London students could open the gaming world to those with severe physical disabilities.

Using the open source game Pong, students at Imperial College London were able to make adaptations so that the player moves the bat using their eyes while wearing special glasses.

The glasses contain infrared light and a webcam for only one eye. Linking to a laptop the computer program syncs the eye movements to the game.
While the prototype game is simple it is believed that in time developers could design more complex games and applications that could be used on wheelchairs using eye movements for the controls.

Even more promising is that the cost for this new technology is inexpensive; using hardware that already exists the devices cost about ￡25. Current eye movement systems used by scientists cost about ￡27,000.

Medical News Today reports: Mr Ian Beer, who is a third year undergraduate from the Department of Computing, adds: "This game is just an early prototype, but we're really excited that from our student project we've managed to come up with something that could ultimately help people who have really limited movement. It would be fantastic to see lots of people across the world creating new games and applications using our software." Dr. Faisal's lab researchers are currently refining the technology so that both eyes can be monitored.

The team that is working on this project include William Abbot, Department of Biomedical Engineering; Oliver Rogers, Department of Maths and Department of Computing; Tim Treglown, Department of Maths and Department of Computing; Aaron Berk, Department of Computing; Ian Beer, Department of Computing.

Source: http://www.digitaljournal.com