Digesting readers
While the arguments about the speech output feature in the Kindle 2 continue to fly, the Hearst Corporation has announced development of an a e-reader designed to emulate newspapers and magazines. The as-yet unnamed device will have a display sized approximately 8.5″ x 11″, as opposed to the 6″ Kindle screen. Will this new product allow text enlargement? Will the Kindle controversy promote or discourage inclusion of speech output? Will it also handle books?
Search engineering
We’ve written before about tagging systems that let you label and then find things like keys and kids that tend to go missing. Trouble was, you always had to rely on a button on a base unit to get a response. The Find It All Key Finder improves the design by making every tag capable of being used to locate every other tag. It also uses a nifty location strategy; the proximity detector flashes more or less frequently depending on whether you’re hot or cold. Great for people with memory impairments; needs a fast/slow audio mode to be helpful to blind folks.
Defying gravity
Straws are terrifically useful for people who have difficulty holding or tilting a mug of liquid…unless that liquid happens to be hot. Enter the On-Orbit Coffee Cup, based on a device designed by an astronaut for use in zero-gravity situations. It uses surface tension and strategically designed grooves to keep a steady supply of hot caffeinated goodness moving ever mouth-ward. Can we get a version specifically designed for hands-free use, please?
Every breath you take, I’ll be diagnosing you
Applied Nanodetectors Ltd. is developing a phone that can analyze breath for various diseases, which may eventually include asthma, diabetes, food poisoning, and lung cancer (what, not halitosis?!), and email results to a personal physician. This could be great for people with disabilities in remote areas who would have difficulty traveling to a medical center, as well as for people who may experience medical emergencies that make talking difficult.
Wired: UK Nanotech Firm: Modded Nokia Handset Instantly Detects Diseases
Pill pager prompts Pop to pop
We’ve seen many medicine reminders, high and low tech. Now we’ve got one that does text messaging! This compact, attractive prototype pill dispenser can receive SMS (wireless text) messages that remind the user to take a pill. The message and timing are pre-programmed in the network (we’ve set ours to 4:20); the dispenser stores the time that the user opens it up so a pharmacist can check it later.
Voice will be voice
Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, their operating system for mobile devices, now supports voice search for voice notes. We’ve become accustomed to recording short snippets on our cell phones, but Recite adds the ability to use your voice to find the right voice note. Say you record where you parked the car: “I parked the car in Aisle 7 on Level 3.” Now just say “parked” or “car”, and that voice note will play back. Perfect for those with impaired memory, and people with vision loss who use audio notation as an organizing tool.
Microsoft Recite brings voice search to your voice notes - Engadget Mobile
Samsung Show must glow on
Samsung appears to be first to market with a phone equipped with a built-in LCD projector: the Samsung Show. It’s also got a touchscreen interface and all the usual apps and media players. We’ve talked about pico-projectors before; it’ll be great to actually get our hands on one to see how readable the image is for low vision users in imperfect lighting conditions. Note: the link below includes a video (uncaptioned) which doesn’t get around to the projector feature until near the end of its 7 minutes.
Video: Samsung Show W7900 projector phone gets specced, demoed - Engadget Mobile