Cursor control at the tip of your tongue
Sensor detects tongue movements inside the mouth and converts them to cursor
   movements or wheelchair commands 
From: Abilities Buzz - 08/2007

In the July 7th issue of The New Scientist, there is a story on a new sensor
that can steer a wheelchair with a persons tongue. Doing so with your mouth
closed and gadget-free is the feat allowed by a tongue-tracking earpiece due
on sale later this year. Typically, quadriplegics must suck or blow into a
straw to steer a wheelchair or move a computer cursor. That can be unhygienic
and irritating for the user, says Ravi Vaidyanathan, an engineer at the
University of Southampton, UK.  

Instead, he and Lalit Gupta of Southern Illinois University Carbondale have
created a device that identifies a range of different tongue movements with
97 percent accuracy, using a microphone that sits inside the ear. The company
Think-a-Move of Cleveland, Ohio, says it will launch a wheelchair steered by
the device by the end of 2007.  

The key elements are a plug that seals the ear from outside noise and a
microphone that points inside the ear canal. When the wearer moves their
tongue, it forces air around the mouth, creating pressure changes unique to
those movements. These pressure changes are transmitted to the ear canal via
the connecting Eustachian tube. There, the microphone detects them and
transmits them to an on-board computer, which converts them into commands
that steer the wheelchair.  

"This seems like a very usable idea that is much less intrusive than current
devices," says Helen Petrie, who researches technology for disabled people at
the University of York, UK. Soldiers and firefighters might also use such
devices to steer remote-controlled robots with their tongues, leaving their
hands free.  

Links:
Cursor control at the tip of your tongue
http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/mg19526115.900-cursor-control-at-the-tip-of-your-tongue.html

Earplug provides steer-by-tongue control
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn12170&feedId=online-news_rss20

Ravi Vaidyanathan
http://www.lsi.soton.ac.uk/index.php?title=Research&articleID=1482

Lalit Gupta
http://www.engr.siu.edu/elec/faculty/gupta/gupta.htm

Researcher's work may aid profoundly disabled
http://news.siu.edu/news/July07/071307tjc7079.jsp

Think-a-Move
http://www.think-a-move.com/

Think-a-Move Video Demonstrations
http://www.think-a-move.com/videodemos.html

Helen Petrie
http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/people/bio.php?person=petrie
http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~petrie/