I want to propose something that, I think, should have been done earlier. I want to propose an eye-tracking reading device for quadriplegics. As we are English majors and avid-readers we often take reading for granted: all it takes is a flip of a page or a click of the mouse for us. Unfortunately, such simple tasks aren’t possible for quadriplegics. From experience with my aunt who has ALS, I’ve seen that her only form of movement is through her eyes. She can scan left to right and blink. That is the extent of her movement; yet technology has already been made to accommodate this. In order to communicate she once had to rely on a nurse and an alphabet chart—she’d blink for each letter and the nurse would write each word my aunt wanted to say. This was time consuming, so my aunt and cousin—her daughter—were happy to learn of an eye-tracking system that made communicating easier. Now all my aunt has to do is look at a letter on a screen in order to spell out words and sentences. This technology has improved her life greatly. However, I propose today something that will build on this technology—and ultimately improve her life even more. I propose an eye-tracker that can upload any number of books for reading. By using her eyes, my aunt would be able to select the next page, go back, access tools such as: highlighting, underlining, or annotating, and much more. The screen, which she would read from, would have a toolbox on the left. In this toolbox there will be various icons representing tasks that can be performed once chosen. This toolbox will feature a Search option—represented by magnifying glass icon—which will allow the user to look up words and other information on the Internet. Additionally, there will be an Audio option—represented by an ear icon—which will allow the user to have the text to be read aloud by a Siri-like, computer-generated voice. These tools will provide optimal usage and accessibility for those who are bed-ridden. Something similar had been proposed, but it was flawed in that it read the facial gestures of the user and interpreted these movements as intentional although most of the time they were not. B.A.R.B. will leave no room for error.
Luckily, B.A.R.B. will not be such a difficult improvement to make as we already have successful eye-tracking technology. Secondly, we already have E-readers, which, in format, look similar to what I’m proposing. If we can find a simple way to merge these two already-established technologies we will be one step closer to providing quadriplegics with the same form of entertainment and enrichment the rest of us enjoy.