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IBM IT

Help For Those With Shaky Hands 201

Posted by Zonk from the a-worthy-peripheral dept.
maotx writes "IBM has developed an adjustible mouse adapter that compensates for the shakes of patients with hand tumors and other causes of uncontrollable shaking. According to the International Essential Tremor Foundation, in the US alone nearly 10 million people are affected by essential tremor, the most common form of hand tremors. This adapter will plug in between the mouse and computer and is compatible with existing mice. No word on which port is supported (ps/2, usb, etc). More info here, here, and here. It is expected that IBM will sell the adapter for under $100 USD."
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Help For Those With Shaky Hands More

Help For Those With Shaky Hands

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  • Growth market (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BWJones ( 18351 ) * on Tuesday March 15, 2005 @02:38PM (#11945878) Homepage Journal
    It is about time that somebody entered this market. I suppose that because age is a risk factor for essential tremor, the need for such a device is only going to increase given the age group that has now become completely dependent upon computers. Most folks I have known with essential tremor (and patients of mine when I was in the clinical side of things) were old enough that they did not routinely use computers. For those that did, keyboarding did not prove as much a problem as using the mouse which requires fine motor skills that often enhance the tremors. Trackballs helped these folks a bit more, but I really would like to see how these compensatory mice work for these patients.

    • Re:Growth market (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TheFlyingGoat ( 161967 ) on Tuesday March 15, 2005 @02:43PM (#11945931) Homepage Journal
      My wife is an occupational therapist, and I know with at least one patient they came up with an even simpler solution: they turned the mouse sensitivity WAY down. Since tremors would move the cursor a much shorter distance, the patient was able to use the mouse once again. Obviously that does nothing for stray mouse clicks. It also required the patient have good range of motion, which a geriatric user might not have. The benefit was that is was free and universally available.
    • Of course I didn't RTFA, that would be cheating!

      This gizzmo will do some sort of filtering to remove the tremor. This can surely be sone with a software filter built in to the mouse driver etc. That would mean it could be given away or sold at $9.99 rather than as a $100 device.

      If someone has to stump up $100 less likely they will want to and less likely they will get the benefit.

      • There's an added benefit to the way IBM is doing this - the mouse is cross-platform, and should (according to what they say) work regardless of operating system.
    • An ex-boss of mine had that problem, if he had'nt had his first beer of the day yet (this happened sometimes if there was some meeting he had to go to).

      He was usually on his second beer by about 8:00 am.

      You as a therapist could have kicked him out, I had to try and work with him.

      Last I heard, he had (been forced to) taken early retirement, had left his wife and gone to live in Thailand. Maybe he is looking for white mice there now.

  • You could spend $100 ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Shkuey ( 609361 ) on Tuesday March 15, 2005 @02:39PM (#11945881)
    or you could get a really cheap mouse that isn't sensitive enough to jitter.
    • Or attach a simple Potentiometer / Resistor to your serial port.... either works. :)
    • So, when someone's hand moves from side to side this hypothetical cheap mouse doesn't? Sounds like a real winner of a mouse! Great idea Shkuey!
    • or you could get a really cheap mouse that isn't sensitive enough to jitter.

      Speaking of which, how often do you clean your mouse?

      I've gone to people's desks to help them with things and found the mouse all irregular and jerky, like it was being navigated by someone with severe tremors. Often it's a build up of ecch, yecch or potrzebie and a few seconds cleaning makes it all smooth again.

      It's probably a real test of patience for someone with tremors to use a dirty mouse.

    • That is what I was thinking. Why couldn't they just add a filter in the mouse that would cut a certain frequency, say above 5 Hz, in the motion of the mouse. Then maybe have a small switch that would disable it when the grandchildren come and want to play HalfLife2. It seems making a new mouse with a small chip inside would be cheaper than having an external adapter.
    • You could turn the sensitivity down as others suggested. I'm not to wild about that idea, it makes someone with an unsteady hand have to move that hand even more.

      But why not just get a trackball?
    • or you could get a really cheap mouse that isn't sensitive enough to jitter.

      Finally a cheap solution so that my mouse doesn't wail around crazy when I pleasure myself while surfing porn!

  • FPS (Score:2, Funny)

    by superpulpsicle ( 533373 )
    DOes this mean automatic improvement in FPS games for the regular gamer?

    • Re:FPS (Score:2, Insightful)

      by kannibal_klown ( 531544 )
      Isn't that what "Mouse Smoothing" does?

      I'm embarassed to say I never bothered looking it up as I leave it at the default levels. However, I always assume it removed the jitteriness from the movement of a mouse so your movements would be more smooth/fluid.

  • That's "Tremor", not "tumor". (Score:5, Informative)

    by djh101010 ( 656795 ) * on Tuesday March 15, 2005 @02:39PM (#11945888) Homepage Journal
    Not sure why I bother submitting corrections anymore to articles in "The mysterious future", but TFA is clearly talking about hand tremor, not "hand tumors".

  • Qqquesstion???? (Score:5, Funny)

    by 00squirrel ( 772984 ) on Tuesday March 15, 2005 @02:39PM (#11945889)
    Dddooo thhey haavvee oonee ffor kkey bbboarrds??.aslk /Yes I'm going to hell

  • Thank God! (Score:3, Funny)

    by SmokeHalo ( 783772 ) on Tuesday March 15, 2005 @02:40PM (#11945891)
    Now I can surf pr0n while I've got the DT's.

  • Yeah... (Score:5, Funny)

    by filmmaker ( 850359 ) * on Tuesday March 15, 2005 @02:40PM (#11945894) Homepage
    According to the International Essential Tremor Foundation, in the US alone nearly 10 million people are affected by essential tremor, the most common form of hand tremors.

    Yeah....from using a mouse all day.

  • In Software (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Digital_Quartz ( 75366 ) on Tuesday March 15, 2005 @02:40PM (#11945895) Homepage
    You'd think you'd be able to smooth out mouse input in software. I admit, the platform independant aspect is nice, but still...

    I wonder what kind of filtering they do for "inadvertant clicks"? Clicks associated with mouse movement? Triple clicks?

    • hardware is needed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by r00t ( 33219 ) on Tuesday March 15, 2005 @02:51PM (#11946026) Journal
      How are you supposed to control the software or
      even install the software? Right, you use the mouse.
      Oh, wait...

      This device comes with a big fat knob and 3 tall
      switches. The worst trouble will be getting the
      plug connected.
    • You'd think you'd be able to smooth out mouse input in software.

      You could. But, with all the crap people are stuffing into the GUI these days, it probably makes sense to keep a load off the CPU for other purposes. This way you can also hook up multiple devices, one for those with tremors and one for others. No sweat, no spending hours dicking with conf files or control panels, nothing.

    • Actually they did https://secure.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/mousesmooth ing .
    • Okay, here's my guess for the real reason this is done in hardware:

      The guy who developed this is probably a hardware engineer who is very familiar with that type of work. To him, the task of writing a generic mouse device filter software driver would have been more complex that making a hardware box that "any" mouse could be plugged into.

      My opinion? This is not a commercial product, but a quick hack. Why not just create a USB pointing device specifically for people with this condition instead of making a

  • Tumors? (Score:1, Redundant)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) *
    hand tumors

    Shouldn't that be tremors?

    My father has had these for decades, as he ages, and I'm seeing myself develop the same.

    When I mess up, I just cuss at the computer, it's less than $100, but I suppose I could make an expensive mistake...

    • Of course, you are right about the tremors.
      Illiterate fucks.

      >When I mess up, I just cuss at the computer, it's less than $100, but I suppose I could make an expensive mistake...

      Perhaps using console mode (for things that it works, like browsing the web) would help?

  • Why not use a driver? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Tuesday March 15, 2005 @02:41PM (#11945901) Homepage Journal
    It's just a hardware adapter, it can't see anything more than your mouse driver can see. Why can't we just write something like this for Windows or Linux? Seems like these companies want to sell $100 hardware device rather than let people download a $10 software package.

    • Re:Why not use a driver? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Chirs ( 87576 ) on Tuesday March 15, 2005 @02:46PM (#11945960)
      The obvious reason for this is to make it OS-agnostic.

      It could certainly be done in software, but you'd have to re-write it for every OS you want to use it on.
      • How many OSes do people use? Maybe 3? If the adapter turns out to be PS/2 then that's only 1 OS you have to worry about. My point is, making it a hardware adapter only serves the purpose of making money off something that could just be a standard feature in all OSes. It has nothing to do with being OS-agnostic. Their testing and technical support isn't going to bother supporting all OSes anyways.

        • Yes but (Score:3, Insightful)

          by rdunnell ( 313839 ) *
          now you can use it at the internet cafe, or at home and at work or school, or the business center at the hotel or whatever, and you don't have to wait for the world to catch up and add support in their drivers, or worry about whether the hotel is running Windows 98 still or whether your office will allow the drivers or whatnot.

          It's a lot more enabling to give someone a small device that solves their problem discreetly rather than no option except to wait for the world to a) realize a problem and b) work to
          • Most (all?) PCs do not have hot pluggable PS/2 ports. In fact, there is a small but nonzero chance you will fry the mobo if you yank out a PS/2 device while the machine is powered on.

            In any case, I imagine that most places with publicly accessable computers take a dim view of users mucking around behind the machine.

            It seems to me that the nicest packaging would be a USB mouse with this adapter built into it. That way if you were using a public terminal and happens to have a user-accessable USB port, you
    • Of course, how are you going to install the driver if your mouse is shaking all over the place? :)

    • OS Independent (Score:3, Informative)

      by lxt ( 724570 )
      Because from the looks of it, this device is OS inpedendent. You could use it for anything that accepts a mouse input - even devices that use propietary OS (XBox can use a mouse, can't it?), and plus: you can take hardware with you. What if your friend doesn't have that driver installed?
    • Some sick bastard wants to imagine 10 million people with essential tremor trying to mate USB connectors.

      Or they want to do the work once for Windows, OSX, Linux, AIX, and iSeries.

  • Other Uses (Score:5, Interesting)

    by th1ckasabr1ck ( 752151 ) on Tuesday March 15, 2005 @02:41PM (#11945903)
    Another semi-obvious possible use would be to utilize similar technology to make operating a mouse on a train (or other bumpy ride) less error-prone.
    • For that, you can do much better with a bit of
      extra hardware. Detect vertical motion of the mouse
      and sideways motion of the computer itself. When
      this extra motion is detected, be less accepting of
      wild mouse motion. When everything else is still,
      handle mouse input in the normal way.

    • Another semi-obvious possible use would be to utilize similar technology to make operating a mouse on a train (or other bumpy ride) less error-prone.

      I often boot my laptop during my bus commute home (30 minutes) to catch up on email, etc. Since the ride is kind of bumpy sometimes, I just turn down the "speed" of the mouse. Makes it less error-prone at the expense of taking longer to navigate menus, etc.

  • I think this may help people with parkinsons although they do shake quite violently (in many cases).
  • This is going to be a monopoly amongst crack-head computer users...
  • At least until after my first cup of coffee in the morning...

  • Question... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anita Coney ( 648748 ) on Tuesday March 15, 2005 @02:42PM (#11945924) Homepage
    ... would that work for the shaking associated with "one hand surfing"?!

  • Photos and further info (Score:5, Informative)

    by Digital_Quartz ( 75366 ) on Tuesday March 15, 2005 @02:43PM (#11945936) Homepage
    Here's a photo of the device [montrosesecam.com], and some more info. The price is $99 USD.
    • Obviously that box compensates for the jitter. Now my question is why can't someone design some software which will emulate this little "black box", and correct the tremor with an algorithm?

      I bet that getting the mean (over N milliseconds) for x and y will do.
  • It's naat a tumah!
  • I have to drag a pc around so I don't stutter through asking her out.
  • like for shakey the robot? [sri.com]

  • sweet (Score:3, Funny)

    by justforaday ( 560408 ) on Tuesday March 15, 2005 @02:48PM (#11945988)
    I'm gonna get one of those and couple it with my force-feedback mouse...

  • More information (Score:3, Informative)

    by NighthawkFoo ( 16928 ) on Tuesday March 15, 2005 @02:48PM (#11945990)
    The mouse controller is being marketed by Montrose Secam Limited [montrosesecam.com]. It is available only for PS/2 mice at the moment, although a USB version is in the works.

    A software version of the device is available at IBM Alphaworks [ibm.com]
  • Does Michael J Fox prefer Windows or Linuz?
  • Isn't that a little steep considering all this is, is probably a moving average filter implementation ???

  • Other solution - use a trackball (Score:5, Informative)

    by Sarlok ( 144969 ) on Tuesday March 15, 2005 @02:50PM (#11946014)
    My father's hands shake some due to essential tremors, and he uses a trackball to overcome this. With a trackball he can position the cursor where he wants and then take his thumb off the ball while he clicks so he's sure to click the right spot. His hands aren't that bad though, so I'm not sure how this would work for someone with really shaky hands.

  • Why hardware? (Score:1, Redundant)

    by AaronStJ ( 182845 )
    Why is this a hardware device? Couldn't all the filtering and smoothing be done just as easily in software?
  • My hands always shake when I'm using p2p apps, out of fear of the RIAA finding me out. It's hard to trade the latest music and movies. Not any more! Take that, RIAA!
  • and other causes of uncontrollable shaking.

    Nah, my mouse-hand remains pretty stable when I'm waxing my knob. Usually. Except when there's Natalie Portman on my monitor. Oh man...

  • Thank you IBM! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by unixmaster ( 573907 ) on Tuesday March 15, 2005 @03:04PM (#11946168) Journal
    My hands are shaking since I was a child and doctors say there is no direct cause for this ( ie no known disease ). And its usually tedious task to use mouse. So thank you IBM =)
  • This also seems like a good way to sabotage your least favorite twitch gamer.
  • It helped a lot and might be an interim step for people who are not severely shakey. The mouse was way too jumpy for them though even at low sensitivity.
  • Unplug the coffee pot. I, too, am going to hell.
  • ...the mantra by which many of us live.

    It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion,
    It is by the beans of Java the thoughs acquire speed, the hands acquire
    shaking, the shaking becomes a warning,
    It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
  • Out of curiosity, is this the sort of innovative invention that the slashdot crowd would agree is worthy of a patent? It's hardware, something you can physically manufacture, OS-agnostic, and there doesn't seem to be anything already like it. At least not that I'm aware of.
    • This could be a case where a single patent is appropriate. At this point, we don't know if it uses some existing patents or some processes that have already become public, or both, so legally, it might be that only some elements should get seperate patents.
      If you believe that software patents should be allowed at all, then arguably the software as a whole may be subject to a patent, but it's much more likely that only some portions of it are.
      Remember, patents require some element of "not being obv
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • This causes shaking of the hands (ranging from 'ever so slight' to 'disturbing') because of a flaked out thyroid. Medication helps now but there were weird days when I couldn't use a mouse. I got one of those softball sized trackballs and used it on those days. This looks cool and could really help with people who suffer from hyp(o|er)thyroidism and Hashimoto's. The benefits are obvious for Parkinson's type diseases too.

  • This is very good news (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ChuckleBug ( 5201 ) * on Tuesday March 15, 2005 @03:20PM (#11946306) Journal
    I have an essential tremor, albeit a mild one. It only manifests itself severely when my muscles are tensed, like making a tight fist. Most of this time it's not a problem, but I have days when my hands are a little bit shaky and I'm prone to stray clicks. Accidentally closing a window is seriously annoying.

    Tremors suck. People who have severe tremors need all the help they can get. I know someone with a severe tremor, and she has to put up with a lot of stares and sometimes hostility. Once a nurse yelled at her to HOLD STILL! while trying to take a blood sample, as if she were doing it on purpose just to piss the nurse off. Of course, the stress of that situation only made it worse.

    What would really be nice would be bowls, glasses, and spoons that stay level so someone with a shaky hand could drink a martini or have some soup without spilling. Right now all they have are weighted utensils, which suck.

    BTW, age is a factor, but essential tremors can happen at any age. I'm 40, and I've had this tremor for 20 years or so. Fortunately, it hasn't gotten worse.

    • Re:This is very good news (Score:3, Informative)

      by jafac ( 1449 )
      I've had it since about age 20. It was the cause of my drop-out from art school.

      You might say that I now use computers BECAUSE of my tremors. It's about the only interface with the world that I have where I have enough control to be productive.

      Although, if you have an occasional accidental window closure, I'd say yours are worse than mine. Yeah, it is rather embarrassing, when people notice, they think I'm on drugs or something. I don't think that this IBM gadget will help me, though I think it would b
    • I sympathize, my grandfather has it quite badly, to the point of making it difficult to eat things like soup obviously. My father has started developing it, and I suspect I will as well as I get older, already I can only hold my hands still if I concentrate.

  • Looks like I picked the right week to quit sniffing glue!

    ~Steve McCrosky
  • I for one would like to have an MS Explorer mouse with a not-so touchy mousewheel. I've numerous times scrolled up or down on a web page when I meant to click. There's practically no rolling resistance on the newer 5-button USB mice.

    Yet I remember their 2-button(3 if you include the mousewheel itself) MS mice being pretty stiff, and hence no accidental scrolling.

    Or better yet, a screw at the bottom to adjust the sensitivity.
  • ...but only if it's Starbucks branded.

    m-
  • Why can't someone design a proper UI that doesn't need a mouse ford navigation?
  • One-handed-typing now easier with revolutionary palm-o-tronic anti-jitter mouse!

    Hurrah for technology. Actually my father has a type of arthritis that makes using a mouse tiring on his hands, so any work on this area is great. Also as a keyboard user since I was 2 I guess I am going to mangle up my hands until I am 60. seem ok so far.

  • I have a minor case of these tremors stemming from chemotherapy a few years back. Using a mouse is semi-annoying, especially to game with. However I have a Logitech trackball with the ball controlled by my thumb. My thumb doesn't shake much so it works great.
  • 136 posts and nobody even touched on whether the trembly users are being discriminated against by mouse vendors. Admittedly, IBM has done a Good Thing (tm) by coming out with this solution, but you'd expect a halfway decent mouse-maker with a conscience to offer it FREE with his mouse. Or at least a hell of a lot cheaper than a hundred bucks! For crying out loud - a Hundred bucks? Thats 25% of the cost of a decent desktop! BAH!
  • My father, who once could program assembler with his eyes closed, fights against his essential tremor every day just to surf and send emails. This very day, he went out and spent $100 on a trackball in hopes that this would solve the problem, but was stressed that if it doesn't, he's out of luck. I've ordered one of these for him, and it can't arrive soon enough.
  • [...] of patients with hand tumors [...]

    TFA mentions tremors, but no tumors. I guess someone here misstyped this one and/or doesn't know the difference.

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