A New Technology Lets The Disabled Control Their Phones Just By Nodding Their Heads
For those who are disabled, basic tasks like dialing a number become an impossible feat. People suffering from paralysis, Cerebral Palsy, ALS, or Parkinson's may find touchscreens challenging or even unfeasible.
That is why Oded Ben Dov, a graduate of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, decided to create a hands-free solution for interacting with smartphones and tablets. Through his startup Sesame Enable, Ben Dov created a hands-free technology that lets users control mobile devices by moving their head.
So when you move your head to the right, a cursor moves to the right. And when you leave your head still for a bit, a check mark and X will pop up letting you select or cancel the button.
Sesame Enable's SesameReader app for Android is available for free in Google Play. It lets you use the hands-free technology to read e-books. Sesame Enable has also partnered with the VirtualSheetMusic app to let musicians easily turn pages of sheet music while playing an instrument. And it's working to integrate its technology in other apps.
Here's how it works:
When you open the Sesame Reader app, it will scan your head so that it can track your movements.
Then when you move your head to the right and keep it still on the arrow, the page will turn.
And when you move your head down, the page scrolls down.
Another application for the technology is if you are cooking and need to turn the page of a digital cookbook but your hands are too messy. In this case you can use your hand to turn the page without actually touching the screen.
Watch Giora Livne, one of the founders of Sesame Enable and a quadriplegic, use Sesame Reader.
You can also watch someone playing Candy Crush with the technology.