Soon having bad hand-eye coordination may not be enough of an excuse to give your frat brothers for losing at Madden NFL 09. Researchers at the University of Washington have begun creating a joystick controlled by one’s voice.

According to CNET:

For many Iraq war veterans who have returned home with debilitating injuries that, for example, make it impossible to use their hands, doing anything on a computer is a hopeless task.

But a research project under way in the University of Washington's electrical engineering, linguistics and computer science departments could be the latest tool at such veterans' disposal, as well as for anyone who lacks the full use of their hands.

The project, known as the Vocal Joystick, is designed to allow someone to control a computer cursor using nothing more than their voice.

University of Washington graduate student Jon Malkin, who spoke at the Gnomedex conference here Saturday, described it is an extension of speech recognition technology.

It works by having a user train the Vocal Joystick software with his or her voice.

"We can do a lot with that," Malkin said. "Speech is a very complex signal."

This technology is impressive— as long as you aren’t a pubescent boy.