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Posted: 8/13/2010 - 0 comment(s) [ Comment ] - 0 trackback(s) [ Trackback ]
Category: Video Games

 This is a pretty neat invention- http://www.games4rehab.org/Sheryl/videos/130

 

The team at Waterloo Labs have developed a method of playing video games with eye movement.  Basically, as they explain in their video, the eyeball is polarized with more negative charge near the back and more positive charge near the front of the eye.  With reference electrodes and a ground, they can determine the position of the eyeball as it moves left, right, up and down.  The setup looks kinda quirky but the function is nice. The only barrier I see to using it in the game, is that you need to reposition your eye ball back to the center to look at the game. One compensation used by a player on the video is to turn his head left and right, up and down to position his eyeball in a "relative" left or right position.  This makes more sense to me.  AND...this brings up another potential rehabilitation tool.  For individuals with Vestibular Optic reflex (VOR) issues or other vestibular impairments, perhaps playing video games by moving your head while keeping your eyes glued to the screen could help with VOR training.  

 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

 

 

Posted: 6/3/2010 - 0 comment(s) [ Comment ] - 0 trackback(s) [ Trackback ]
Category: Video Games

How easy is that- Boston College students developed a simple head tracking system that can be used to perform functions that a mouse typically performs.  I wonder....do you think we could build a few games with this device? 

It seems our community is talented enough to build a few easy to play PC based games that challenge sitting balance while sitting at your computer (the object of the game could be either to move your head over your body while maintaining balance or to sit on a therapeutic ball and move your body while keeping your head really still). 

Watch their promotional video here.

Another idea for building games with this device is a game that improves neck range of motion or a game that helps to train up impaired Vistibular Occular Reflexes.  I wonder if we could make a relaxation game with it too.  Maybe we could create a few relaxing movements that the desk jockey must perform such as shoulder shrugs or deep breathing or shoulder rolls all while using the camera mouse. 

Since the camera mouse seems to be only a one way street (i.e. it is tracking a persons head movement but video is not being used) we need to get creative about how to make the games fun.  What do you all think?  Any taker?  Lets get together and see if we can make this happen.  From the looks of their website, it seems there are a few games that have already been developed...I wonder if we can learn from those games and build new ones too!

Check out their Website