Dasher - Writing faster than the onscreen keyboard

This has nothing to do with gaming but it might help a few people.

I want to introduce the program Dasher, it's a new approach to writing without a keyboard. You might ask why not using an on-screen keyboard? Because it's slow.

User requirements: You have to be able to move a mouse, head mouse or eye tracker.

Who can benefit from Dasher? People who can't move their hands, who can't use a speech recognition because of speaking disabilities, who want to write in a language their speech recognition doesn't support. And if you need assistance 24/7 you have limited privacy; if you use your speech recognition anyone around you overhears what you are writing. Using Dasher you can write faster than using the on-screen keyboard and you can write without being overheard.

How does it work? When you start Dasher you see a large square which includes squares of each letter of the alphabet and a square with the capitalized letters. Now if you wanna write "hello" you point in the direction of the H square, within that square you have another alphabet where you point to the letter E, in the next alphabet you point to L etc.

Once you get used to it you can add squares with numerals and punctuation.

At the top you see your text.

You can change the writing speed manually or you can let the program adapt itself, in the latter case Dasher gets faster the less mistakes you make and vice versa

It has built-in words and phrases prediction.

You can add dictionaries of any language, a dictionary is a text file with a text in your desired language.

The more you use the program the more it learns how you write.

And here's a video on how Dasher works.  


Dasher is available here:
The Dasher Project

The Logitech MX Air as a head mouse

I was searching for an alternative to the built-in gyroscope of the Emotiv EPOC and stumbled upon the gyro mouse MX Air from Logitech which works on the desk and in the air. I asked myself if it would work on the head as well. So I purchased one online for 65,-€
I mounted the Logitech MX Air mouse at the top of the Sennheiser PC 360 G4ME headset as follows. I attached a square velcro tape with superglue at the bottom of the mouse and wound a piece of velcro band round the headband of the headset.

Now you simply put the mouse at the top of the headset and it’s properly secured and safe. To click the mouse I use the freeware Dwell Clicker which also offers a quick swich between the different mouse clicks.

The MX Air works even better as the built-in gyroscope of the Emotiv EPOC as it is more precise and easier to hold the cursor still so you can click a button.

If you can’t move your hands and have good control over your head the Logitech MX Air is an affordable alternative to specific, expensive head mice.

Gallery:

The Emotiv EPOC & hands-free Gaming

I got a new game controller a few weeks ago which is called the Emotiv EPOC. I want to share my experience and show you how I use it in games hands-free (in combination with different tools).

What you should know first: As a US citizen you can purchase the Consumer Edition for $299,-. Non-US citizens have to purchase the Developer Edition for $500,-

One important feature is the built-in Gyroscope. You can move the mouse with a slight head movement.
The first day it was somewhat difficult as I haven't been using my neck muscles actively for years. The second day the neck pain got less. As of the third day it got better and better. After more than a month using the Gyro daily for 4-8 hours my neck muscles got a bit stronger.

The next important feature is the Expressive Suite. The Emotiv EPOC recognizes your facial expressions like: Look left/right, Blink eye, Raise brow, Furrow brow, Smirk left/right etc.
They are quite easy to control without much training.

The next important feature is the Cognitiv Suite. You can use 4 actions at once like: think Push, Pull, Left, Right.
There are many more you can train. As it isn't that easy I cheated at the beginning. Meaning: when I think Push I tense the tip of my nose. Tense my left/right ear for left/right movement. After a while you think more and tense less. It's not that hard but it requires discipline and regular training.

For the moment I don't have the patience for regular training and wearing the EPOC with sensors can get a little uncomfortable after about 2 hours. So I've been using the device for the Gyro only lately, it works without sensors.

Here's how I control FPS Games.

As mentioned above I use the Gyro to move the mouse/look around in-game.
You should know that in many FPS games the Gyro doesn't work out of the box because it's just a virtual mouse. But there's a workaround: the freeware GlovePIE converts the virtual mouse to a real mouse (so the game is led to believe the Gyro was a normal mouse). As a side effect GlovePIE inverts the mouse vertically, to by-pass the invertion I invert the mouse again in the game options.

For the rest of the commands I use Game Commander 3: "Fire" to shoot, "Go" to go forward, "Go back", "Left", "Right", "Jump" etc.
When I play with sensors I use facial expressions: Blink Eyes to click/shoot, Raise Brow to go forward, Smirk Left/Right...
Driving cars without sensors is difficult but I'm searching for a way to map the left/right mouse movement to the A/D keys.

One word of advise: Be very careful when you put on the EPOC as the headband is very sensitive. Mine cracked at one side.