This article was taken from the February 2012 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online. "The brain's components are basically cheap crap," says 37-year-old Aldo Faisal, a lecturer in neurotechnology at Imperial College, London. "It runs on electricity but, instead of copper wires, it uses salt water.
And yet it manages to do amazing things."
Cheap components are Faisal's stock-in-trade, and he has dedicated himself to solving complex problems at minimal cost. His latest project, developed alongside undergraduates in his department, is an ultra-low-cost eye-tracking system. "Most eye-tracking systems cost around £30,000," he says. "Ours works just as well for a thousandth of that."
The team attached two £10 cameras, usually found in video-game consoles, to a pair of spectacles. As the user moves his or her eyes, the cameras register each iris's movement and sends the data to a PC. Right now the students are playing Pong with their eyes, but in the pipeline is technology that could control a wheelchair. "The two cameras capture the depth as well as the direction of where someone is looking," says Faisal. "You could use your eyes to trace a path, and then the wheelchair would move accordingly."
Faisal has had approaches from VCs, but he wants a maverick investor. "We are looking for a commercial partner who embraces the idea of making everything cheap, so everyone can use it," he says. "I am not doing research to make money."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
