One pillcap makes you smarter
Vitality, Inc. has created a pillcap that’s more intelligent than many sentient life forms. It blinks to let you know it’s time to take your pill (up to 4x per day); if you ignore it, it glows more brightly. If you still ignore it (or if you can’t see the glow), it emails you or calls your mobile phone. It also knows when you’re running low on your prescription and contacts your pharmacist to reorder.
Getting testy
Here’s a new concept in product testing: stand on the sidewalk with a computer and a live Internet connection, and ask random passers-by to try out your website. Let’s see: since more than 1 in 10 members of the general population has a disability, do you suppose the testers got a representative sample of comments about site accessibility?
San Francisco Chronicle: Social networking meets social change
Hearing product prevents or ameliorates loss
A new headset both cancels noise and amplifies speech. Designed for use in noisy environments, Sensear protects your ears from permanent damage and increases the gain of whatever is coming from right in front of you. The headset reduces the risk of long term loss, and allows people who are hard of hearing to aim the embedded microphones at whatever they want to hear.
Finder is a keeper
This locator gadget from Skymall lets you connect up to 8 remotes to anything you want, by keychain or adhesive. Then use the corresponding button on the base unit to make the remote tattle on the whereabouts of your keys, scissors, pills, kids, etc. Cute and colorful!
Dracula in small bytes
DailyLit is a free Web service that will send short segments of the public domain book of your choice to your handheld device or email address at the same time every day. This could be an interesting option for readers with some types of learning disabilities who get distracted by having to look at too much text at a time. If the handheld has a voice output option, so much the better.
Get out of your slump
A lot of computer-related injuries are caused by bad posture–leaning too far forward towards the screen to see it better, and so on. The VISIOMATE is designed to address this–if it detects that you’re not sitting correctly, it provides an audio prompt to urge you back into proper position. Or perhaps it’s just encouraging you to take a bathroom break.
A mouse in the hand…
The plug-and-play Magic Mouse fits on an index finger (or a toe, or on a baseball cap?) and uses the same technology as GPS to figure out where you’re pointing on the screen. What’s most impressive about this prototype is the cost–good infrared systems that perform similar feats for people with no hand use are available, but cost around $1,000; this model was assembled for well under $200.