The MouthPad allows users to interact with phones and computers using their tongue and other head gestures. Credit: Courtesy of Augmental
“We have a big chunk of the brain that is devoted to controlling the position of the tongue,” Vega explains. “The tongue comprises eight muscles, and most of the muscle fibers are slow-twitch, which means they don’t fatigue as quickly. So, I thought why don’t we leverage all of that?”People with spinal cord injuries are already using the MouthPad every day to interact with their favorite devices independently.
“I only applied to one program for grad school, and that was the Media Lab,” Vega says. “I thought it was the only place where I could do what I wanted to do, which is augmenting human ability.”At the Media Lab, Vega took classes in microfabrication, signal processing, and electronics. He also developed wearable devices to help people access information online, improve their sleep, and regulate their emotions.
At MIT, he decided to build a solution with all the potential of a brain implant but without the limitations.In his last semester at MIT, Vega built what he describes as “a lollipop with a bunch of sensors” to test the mouth as a medium for computer interaction. It worked beautifully.
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