Control your gadgets...with your teeth : Tech Digest

Eating, drinking, typing and scratching - we ask a lot of our hands before we even consider controlling our gadgets. So good news for your fingers - tooth-control could be on its way.

Yes, a team at Osaka University in Japan has come up with a human-machine interface that is controlled by grinding your teeth together. Obviously there is a serious reason behind the research, which is to create a simple switching system for people unable to use their hands properly through illness or injury. The result is a hair band with infrared sensors that detect motion in the muscles of the temples caused by pressing the rearmost teeth together.

A computer decides if the muscles have generated the movement pattern unique to tooth grinding and sends a signal to the connected device if they have. It is hoped that that the system will eventually control electric wheelchairs - although right now it is just limited to switching a CD player on and off.

Via Digital World Tokyo