Life is tweet
OK, you’re faced with that time-honored choice: get in your car and drive to work, or continue to follow and update your friends on Twitter. OnStar is thinking of eliminating the dilemma by creating a function that lets you create tweets using voice recognition and retrieve them using text-to-speech output. If this could be implemented outside the auto environment, it could allow people with visual and dexterity disabilities to be as mundane as the rest of us.
Tofulator
We’re not sure how tofu and captions are inherently related. And yet there’s the Tofulator, a pretty easy method of adding captions to YouTube videos. Currently used for entertainment purposes, but fingers crossed that it’ll be available more widely in the future.
Choice’s people
According to a Verdict Research study, the latest marketing trend is apparently “edited choice,” which means “building sites that are able to adapt slightly to the taste preferences of groups of consumers” and automatically implementing those adaptations when a consumer logs in. Hmmm, how ’bout if the sites could adapt to the access preferences of those consumers while they’re at it?
Usability News: The new Customer Experience buzzword: ‘Edited Choice’
She seems to have an Nvisible Touch, yeah
Biometrics meets high customizability meets hands-free responses to create a better…TV remote. The Nvisible Touch can be set up according to each family member’s preferences; it then somehow senses who’s holding it and brings up their interface accordingly. (Question 1: Does this require hand use? We’re not just thinking accessibility here; it would be nice if our cats could turn on Full Mouse reruns by themselves.) It then senses the current user’s mood based on blood pressure, heart rate, and blood oxygen, and adjusts volume or even ambient lighting accordingly. (Question 2: Could this also be used to convey medical information in an emergency–and could it distinguish between a genuine heart attack or just a reaction to another Cubs loss?) Unclear when, if ever, this might get to market, but the concepts might have applicability elsewhere.
Tongue in squeak
Tongue Music is a prototype system that lets users control audio output using only tongue movements. It’s not Tchaikovsky, but it is a hands-free means of artistic expression. We’re even going to go on a bit of a limb and say that this seems to extend the concept of “gesture-based” technology, since the tongue apparently doesn’t need to actually touch anything for this to work.
Gaze in the millinery
We’ve reached the point where a camera-based gesture interface, a pico-projector, and wireless computing has come together in SixthSense, a wearable prototype that lets the user grab information about anything in the vicinity. Aim at a package on a supermarket shelf to see its environmental information; aim at a building to take its picture or see its layout in a map view; project a telephone keypad onto your hand and dial away. Information that’s rich and relevant.
Right now, of course, you have to be able to see pretty well, be able to point your head at a target without shaking, and be able to move your hands and fingers accurately and consistently. But we’re gonna fix that at today’s meeting, right, gang? OK, everybody push on the big steel lab door!
There’s a video of this prototype in operation. (Forget our negativity — this thing is bangin’.)
Apple looser
Apple, sometimes criticized for its hermetically sealed and largely inaccessible wireless fashion accessory, may be on its way to killing two turds with one phone. The new OS3 will allow hardware developers to attach gadgets of all types to the iPhone via a dock connector for any imaginable application: sphygmomanometry, mass spectroscopy, and maybe, who knows, alternate keyboards and braille outputs.
Make: Online : iPhone OS 3 to talks to accessories in dock connector