Voice-Controlled Joystick Developed For Handicapped

August 25, 2008 8:59 a.m. EST

Seattle, WA (AHN) - University of Washington students over the weekend demonstrated a new project allowing disabled computer users to control the movement of a PC's cursor by simply vocal commands.

Known as the Vocal Joystick the device uses simple vowel sounds to move a computer cursor or click a mouse button. The results can be as simple as navigating a game character or instructing a paint program to create a digital image.

The vowel sounds include "ee" to move left, "aw" to move right, or "uh" to click a mouse button. At the weekend Gnomedex conference, University of Washington graduate student Jon Malkin also showed a painting of Japan's Mount Fuji created by a Japanese artist and his group's Vocal Joystick coupled with Voicedraw, an application created for the hardware.

The group of university engineering students hope to expand upon their work to develop robotic arms or ways to control home functions by voice.

The research is funded by a National Science Foundation grant.