Muscling in
An assortment of folks from Microsoft and academia are working on a muscle-computer gestural interface; the current examples show how you can play Guitar Hero with an air guitar, control your MP3 player while jogging, and open your car door when your hands are full. All units are wired at present, but wireless versions are in the works. Hoping this gets extended to more types of environmental control applications by people who have little or no hand movement.
Etre: Muscle-Computer Interfaces: Play Guitar Hero without a guitar
Playing close to the chest
OK, let’s say that your dexterity limitations don’t match the killer version of Smoke On The Water that you know you have inside. Introducing ThinkGeek’s playable guitar t-shirt, also available in a drum model, that would be perfect for folks who have some range of motion but wouldn’t be able to actually hold an instrument.
Shortcuts, people, got every reason to live
The history of the graphical user interface, in one sentence: The mouse is introduced, then people keep looking for more and more keyboard shortcuts so they don’t have to use the mouse–particularly if their impetus is a dexterity disability. So we’re happy to report that our first Windows 7 post links to a rundown of a bunch of shiny new shortcuts, covering a range of functions from creating a new file to starting up any of the first ten items pinned to your Start menu.
Tray that takes the cake
Musical cake trays are nothing new. But the Musical Cake Tray brings the concept into the 21st century by adding LED lights so you get an enhanced visual guide for slicing perfect wedges. Tray bien!
Send in the clowns…don’t bother, we won’t see ‘em
To the list of disabilities that technology use emulates–like ADD–we can now add “inattentional blindness,” which causes cell phone users to miss blatant changes in their visual field, such as the appearance of a brightly-dressed clown on a unicycle. In lieu of requiring that all cell phone use occur inattent, maybe some more concerted compliance with architectural regs about reducing environmental hazards for blind folks could lower accident rates among walking talkers as well.
Follow the bouncing ball
Adults and elders can have a variety of priorities when selecting assistive technologies–efficiency, cost, portability, durability, etc. Kids tend to have one: whether or not the technology makes them look cooler, or at least as cool, as their peers. Take speech therapy software, which has tended to have exercises such as using specific tones to move a monkey up a tree; hokey for kids, and probably of minimal interest to most adults. How much more groovy (that word’s back in circulation, right?!) to consider use of the Scoring Karaoke Game, which allows users to pick their own songs and then score points for staying on pitch. Any speech therapists want to comment on how this could be used or modified in their practice?
You’re so Square (baby, we might care)
Square is a small card reader that connects to the headphone jack of an iPhone or iPod Touch, and allows for wireless credit card transactions. So far so good, but there are two parts of the process that could make or break the accessibility implications. First, the user verifies the transaction by using a finger to scrawl their signature. If the iPhone/iPod lets the user start and finish writing at any point on the screen, it could be a boon for people with either dexterity disabilities or blindness; otherwise, it may pose significant problems. Second, once the transaction is finished, either the buyer or the merchant enters the buyer’s email address so that a receipt can be sent. How accessible is the interface for doing this on the buyer’s end, particularly since many may be reluctant to share their address with merchants?