Chameleon lamp reacts to ambient background
The Huey lamp senses the color of whatever it’s sitting on and changes to match that color. What we’d love to see as a related product is a lamp with the same type of sensors, but that responds by changing to a light color that would maximize contrast for elders and people with low vision.
OhGizmo: Huey chameleon lamp changes colors to match whatever he’s sitting on
911 to expand communication options
Texting is a perfect example of what AoMS is about–a mainstream technology that is seamlessly relevant to one or more groups of people with disabilities, in this case people with hearing or speech disabilities. However, when texting could be most valuable–in emergency situations–it’s been unsupported by 911 call centers. The FCC is aiming to change that by upgrading the system to accept not only text but also digital images, which could be critical for people with communication skills impaired either by disability or the urgency of the situation.
Voice-activated flashlight
From the world of Harry Potter comes a voice-activated flashlight that responds to whatever on and off commands you record. Could be great for people with dexterity or visual disabilities, and anyone in the middle of a power outage.
Instapaper auto adjusts contrast based on time of day
Instapaper is a neat little iPhone app that lets you save websites for future perusal. What’s interesting about its latest release is that it lets you enter your location, and adjusts the text/background contrast from dark-on-light to light-on-dark around the local time that the sun sets. Since we all need more contrast as we age, could you also enter your birthdate and have the contrast auto-adjust for that too?
Visual signal for Twitter keywords
In the spirit of Nabaztag, here’s an interesting hack involving an animatronic monkey that waves its arms whenever a keyword appears in a Twitter stream. Good alternative to a beep for Deaf and hard-of-hearing people.
Gizmodo: Super cute Twitter monkey goes bananas when it spots a keyword
Ready, set, Odiogo
One of the most popular assistive technology features we’ve been asked about in recent years is the ability to convert text to downloadable audio files on the fly. Now there’s Odiogo, a free, mainstream service that does the same thing for “news sites and blog posts.” Great for anyone who prefers audio format or who benefits from simultaneous reading and listening. The only drawback is that it’s not controllable by the end user; instead, the website owner has to sign up for it.
Working?: (IE)Nine to (HTML)Five
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) tested support for HTML5 among commonly-used browsers, and found that Internet Explorer 9 does the overall best job. However, these results are not entirely consistent with the accessibility-focused review of HTML5 being done by the Paciello Group (which gives the nod to the current Firefox beta), and some accessibility items seem to not be covered in the W3C testing. La luta continua.
The Register: First official HTML5 tests topped by…Microsoft