Monday, September 05, 2011

APP Attack! Mouthsticks,

Mouthstick being used on iPhone screen
Occasionally we will be working with someone who has difficulty using their fingers, but they would still greatly benefit from using an iPad or other touchscreen device.  If they have good control of their hand, but can't isolate a finger, then we can use a stylus, sometimes with a cuff to hold things in place.  If they can move their head in a controlled way, then we can look at mouthsticks.  The problem is that common mouthsticks and styluses don't work with capacitive touchscreens.

Products like the iPad and iPhone have capacitive touchscreens, which means that it measures a change in electric charge when your finger touches the screen.
(Want to learn more?  How Stuff Works has a great little explanation and graphic:  http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/iphone1.htm)

Solution?  A little company called iFaraday, makes a stylus for capacitive touchscreens, and has been nice enough to also make mouthsticks for them.  They have done some good research into the materials that work best for this task.  See for yourself:  http://www.ifaraday.com/Capacities.html.
A similar product, developed by a mouthstick user, comes in various lengths:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/IBilityStick/112730578809399?sk=wall.


Do you want to learn more about APPS?

Then sign up for our APP Attack workshop on October 5th at our Ewing NJ office.

We are limiting the registration to the first 20 people, so sign up today!

For more info, click 
HERE.

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