Tongue May Become Joystick to Control Devices

Ok so here's something interesting i read in my Computer
& Information System text book. They are considering using the tongue as a Joystick to control devices.  The article stated that many people are paralyzed from their neck down due to spinal cord damage, however, these people still have control of their tongue due to the fact that the tongue is controlled by a cranial nerve and not the spinal cord.

So for these type of people the Georgia Institute of Technology's Tongue Drive system may be the input device that helps them control their lives. Ok so they are stating that in the Georgia Tech prototype the tongue is used as a Joystick.  There is a magnet which is less than one-eighth of an inch wide which is surgically implanted under the tip of the tongue, and when a person moves his or her tongue, sensors on each cheek record the magnet's movements in one of six directions.

The directions are: left, right, forward, backward, single-click and double-click.  The data is sent to a receiver on top of the person's head, which, in turn, transmits a signal wirelessly to a computer that controls an electronic device. Here is an example that was given, if the tongue moves forward and to the left, lights in the room could turn on or a wheelchair could roll forward. The article also stated that in a future development of the Tongue Drive System, it is been consider of also using the person's teeth as a keyboard. An individual tooth could be designated as a specific letter, so teeth could function, in effect as a keyboard.

So this article i found was pretty amazing the things that we can do with technology is so far advance. It is also amazing to see that someone is thinking about making the disables lives much better in this way they won't feel as helpless as they use to and some of them will be able to live on there own and do things for themselves.

So tell me guys what you think about this article share your advice and concerns. I would love to hear what you come up with also give this article a rating did you think that this device is awesome, dangerous or crazy.

Come let me know what you think!

Reference

Shelly, G. & Vermaat, M. (2011). Input:Input Devices for Physically Challenged Users. In McMahon, K.(Eds). Discovering Computers, Boston: Cengage Learning, pp.286.