OSCulator is a "hub" program that lets you connect a variety of unusual input devices to regular music creation programs. You can use touch-screens, Wiimotes, 3D mice, and a host of other devices for input and OSCulator converts the signals from those devices to the desired output. The usual use of OSCulator is for making music, but you can also configure it to output keyboard or mouse events or trigger AppleScripts - I'm sure there's additional assistive tech possibilities there!

This amazing 9 minute video shows some of what OSCulator and a Wiimote together can enable the user to do:

[embed width="640" height="385"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESDzYYl0__s[/embed]

I'd love to hear of anybody using this for assistive tech purposes!

- Ricky Buchanan

Most Macintoshes now come with a remote control for using with Front Row, but a remote can have many more uses than that.

Macworld has an article about Mira, which lets the Apple remote work with any application. Mira supports many third party remotes too.

For users with a Nintendo Wii, the open source DarwiinRemote program allows you to control Mac applications by using the Wii Remote. The Wii Remote can even control the mouse pointer.

These remotes aren't meant to do everything, but if you only need a limited number of commands they can be very useful.

- RickyBuchanan