Re: A somewhat unusual question

[José Félix Ontañón <felixonta gmail com>]

2010/10/11 Ben Taylor <btaylor2 imsa edu>

Firstly, let me apologize if this is not an appropriate place to post this question.

I'm working on a project for a class in Speculative Fiction Studies.  Our assignment is to find a topic that interests us as a basis for a Science Fiction "universe" and do some research into what is known about it in reality right now.  On that note, I was wondering if you might be able to answer a few quick questions.   The topic I have chosen centers around eye/head/gesture tracking as a computer interface method.  I found this address on http://mairin.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/painless-accessibility-tips-for-gnome-designers-and-developers/ with a mention of eye and head tracking, and I was wondering if someone could fill me in as to the current state and future plans for those technologies in GNOME.  Do you see these interface methods as ones that could be adapted for broader use over time, or are the mouse and keyboard here to stay? How do you see these interfaces changing the way we use computers?  On a final note, there are two broad categories of Science Fiction - Hard and Soft.  Hard SF focuses its stories around the technology, and pays careful attention to realism and detail, while Soft SF tends to use the technology as a means of telling a more human-centric story.  Which sort of story do you see this sort of interface lending itself to?

Thank you all very much for your time, and again my apologies if this isn't an appropriate place to pose the question(s).

--Ben Taylor

(btaylor2 imsa ed

Hi Ben,

About the soft. categories I know about  and Enable Viacam[2] and last week I also knew, at 1st AEGIS a11y conference, about the OpenGazer[1] project. 

OpenGazer provides you head/eyes/gesture_switch tracking with ordinary webcams. I know it's not mature but you can try it.
Enable viacam it's quite simple, providing only a way for moving the pointer with head tracking. Enable Viacam it's providing motoric a11y in the Guadalinfo project, a network of internet access centers in Andalusia (Spain) with about 5k machines.

Cheers!

[1] http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/opengazer/
[2] http://eviacam.sourceforge.net/eviacam_es.php

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