Samsung has just unveiled EyeCan+, a new take on helping improve access to computers for people with disabilities.
It’s based around glasses-free eye-tracking, whereby the mouse follows where you’re looking
Interaction like clicking, dragging, and scrolling comes courtesy of various eye movements and blinks, with 18 different commands included.
The actual EyeCan+ unit is little more than a portable box that you put underneath a desktop monitor.
It then calibrates with the user’s eye, and is promised to work well from any position, including lying down.
Each user will need to be somewhere between 60cm and 70cm from the monitor for optimum usage – any further and calibration goes fuzzy.
SiJeong Cho, VP of Community Relations at Samsung, said “
Samsung originally released the EyeCan (sans +) back in march 2012, and has since ‘significantly upgraded’ the calibration sensitivity and overall user experience.
It’s a big leap for those with severe health issues who would normally struggle to do simple things like access the internet, produce a word document, or watch a video.
The South Korean firm says it’s not going to commercialise the EyeCan+, instead promising to donate a ‘limited quantity’ to charities.
Fortunately, it also says the technology and design of its eye-tracking mouse will be made open source in the near future, which could mean a much wider roll-out should willing parties snap up the opportunity to tinker with it.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
