What's Next: A New Rule of Cursor Control: Just Follow Your Nose
October 28, 2004
By IAN AUSTEN
USING your nose to move the cursor on a computer screen is
not the kind of idea that just pops into your head.
"It didn't occur to me in the middle of the night,"
admitted Dr. Dmitry O. Gorodnichy, a computer vision
scientist with the National Research Council of Canada in
Ottawa. Rather, Dr. Gorodnichy's camera and software
system, which controls a computer by tracking the movement
of the nose, had its origins in a contribution to the
American space program.
The nouse, as he calls his system, is among the latest in
cursor-control methods designed to replace the
hand-operated mouse. Most of these systems, which are
generally intended for disabled people, track head
movements, and often require that the user wear headgear or
attach a marker to the face. The nouse and another method
that relies on tongue movements inside the mouth represent
attempts to make such systems simpler and more useful.
"It's not to replace the mouse," Dr. Gorodnichy said of his
invention. "It's to add extra features to the computer."
Dr. Gorodnichy's work on visual recognition of body motion
goes back to his days working on upgrading the robotic
lifting arm used in the space shuttle. He was one of many
scientists at the research council who had worked on that
project, which was Canadian designed and built.
Researchers had already explored the possibility of
tracking facial movements, but Dr. Gorodnichy said their
systems all suffered from limitations. Some researchers had
optimistically assumed that users could keep their faces
still when using computers. And the systems developed by
others were limited also. For example, they could only
recognize whether a user was shaking his head from side to
side or nodding.
Initially, Dr. Gorodnichy said, his group tried to use a
pair of cameras to create a 3-D image of the face, thinking
that would make it easier to track facial elements. But
aligning images from two cameras, he said, seemed an
excessively fussy procedure for most users. As a result,
they concentrated on using one camera, a basic computer
Webcam costing about $25.
Many face-recognition systems make use of the eyes, but Dr.
Gorodnichy said it became apparent early on that the nose
had much more going for it, at least from a computer vision
standpoint.
To begin with, Dr. Gorodnichy said, "the nose is located
very conveniently in the middle of the face." Adding to its
charms is the fact that unlike, say, the eyebrows, the
position of its tip isn't significantly altered by tilting
the head. Ultimately it proved relatively simple to write
software that tracked the nose with precision, despite the
resolution limitations of the bargain Webcam.
The Canadian researchers rejected using eyes as their
marker facial feature, but they did not completely ignore
them. To avoid driving users to distraction as the cursor
jumps around every time they move their head, the nouse is
turned off or on whenever the software detects a double
blink, much like the double-click of a conventional mouse.
But rather than finding the eyes first, the system finds
the eyes by locating the nose. "Once it finds the nose, it
becomes quite trivial to locate the eyes," Dr. Gorodnichy
said.
Dr. Gorodnichy has experimented with adding blinks for
additional functions - the nouse version of the
right-click. But, so far at least, winking is out.
"I'm not very good at winking, and it's just very
convenient to blink several times," Dr. Gorodnichy said.
Using the nouse to play a computer game in his lab, Dr.
Gorodnichy still uses the keyboard for some functions.
During play, his head movements are constrained, at least
in contrast to the on-screen action. "It takes some
practice," he acknowledged.
The final details have yet to be resolved, but Dr.
Gorodnichy said it appeared that the first application of
his nouse system would be in a system for hospital patients
who are largely paralyzed. With the software and an
appropriate camera, he said, they should be able to summon
help to their bedsides by double-blinking their eyes.
Think-A-Move, a company in Beachwood, Ohio, is also aiming
at the medical market. This month it licensed its
tongue-tracking technology to Switch-It, a maker of
motorized wheelchair control systems in Houston.
Jim West, the chief executive of Think-A-Move and the
former chief information officer at U.S. Cellular, was
approached to be a financial backer of the company. After
hearing that it was trying to control computers through
tongue movements and the audio changes they make in the ear
canal, he was not initially impressed.
"It sounded a little science fiction-y," he recalled. "I
said, 'I don't think so.' "
But after a demonstration and after meeting with
researchers, the company persuaded Mr. West not only to put
up money but to join its management.
People think of the ear as something that brings signals
from the outside into the body, but Mr. West said the ear -
more precisely, the ear canal - also effectively broadcasts
what's happening inside the body. Moving the tongue around
the mouth, for example, subtly alters air pressure in the
ear canal and sets up vibrations in the jaw bone, which
also make their way to the ear.
Those signals, of course, are very faint. To pick them up,
Think-A-Move users insert what amounts to a reverse hearing
aid. Its microphone measures sounds inside the ear canal
and transmits them to a computer or another electronic
device using a Bluetooth wireless connection.
In the case of the wheelchair, Think-A-Move and Switch-It
hope to replace controllers that rely on breath signals.
But in all applications, Mr. West said, users must train
the software in the same way voice recognition programs are
trained. That generally involves repeating a motion
(touching the tongue to a molar, for example) and assigning
it a function (like "next page").
Mr. West said fatigue did not affect the system's
performance, but he acknowledged that users must be careful
to avoid tongue movements they make almost unconsciously
throughout the day.
"I don't usually flick my tongue to my rear back molar,"
Mr. West said. "A bad move for me would be depressing the
tongue against my lower front teeth."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/technology/circuits/28next.html?ex=1099992
779&ei=1&en=d32749d717c0adc2
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