Access on Main Street

Jim Tobias — Sun, 28 Jan 2001 12:55:43 +0000

Welcome to Access on Main Street. We cover mainstream products that, by chance or design, make life easier for an elder or a person with a disability. We want to inform consumers, inspire designers, and wake up marketers to opportunities with these underserved customers. Please comment on our articles, and point us to your own mainstream nuggets.

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You can’t spell “complain” without “LA”

Jim Tobias — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 13:01:02 +0000

Using an Apple iPhone app, L.A. citizens can now take a picture of a broken sidewalk or other municipal flaw and send it directly to the city government for instant relief. How about reporting blocked curbcuts or illegal use of handicapped parking spaces?

L.A. city government: Residents have a finger on problems with iPhone app - latimes.com

Prompt system

Jane Berliss-Vincent — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:35:29 +0000

Prompt-It is a hardware device that turns text from your smart phone into a teleprompter. Could be a lifesaver for people with any type of dexterity or memory difficulties who have to give a presentation in situations where using other types of notes is difficult or undesirable.

Ubergizmo: Prompt-It iPhone teleprompter

Tune in, turn on

Jane Berliss-Vincent — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:21:51 +0000

Auto-Tune is software that can make bad singers sound competent, or game show hosts sound stoned. Wonder if the technology could also be used to modify the voices of people with dysarthric speech so that speech recognition applications would recognize them better?

Gizmodo: What Is Last Week’s “Alex Meets Auto-Tune” Jeopardy Category?

Across the universal

Jane Berliss-Vincent — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:06:36 +0000

Looks like there are several universal design features to applaud in iOS 4, the new iPhone operating system. The one we’re latching on to is systemwide implementation of typing assistance: auto-suggest and spell check.

Access Tech News: iOS 4: The Complete Walkthrough and Guide

There’s no mouse like…no mouse?

Jane Berliss-Vincent — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 21:36:10 +0000

We’ve been used to the mouse for some time; grab it and move your hand to navigate a cursor around the screen. But what if a computer could just track your hand instead? Enter Mouseless, a prototype infrared system that directly interprets hand movements for cursor control; wonderful for people whose dexterity makes grasping difficult. You still have to tap your index finger on the table to click, though, which begs the question of whether a different finger or even a different strategy could be assigned.

Gizmodo: First the mouse, then Mighty Mouse, then Magic Mouse and now the Invisible Mouse

Tweet spot

Jane Berliss-Vincent — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 12:40:43 +0000

Roger Ebert (again) on the value of Twitter as augmentative communication:

“Twitter for me performs the function of a running conversation. For someone who cannot speak, it allows a way to unload my zingers and one-liners. One of the problems with written notes and computer voices is that, by their nature, their timing doesn’t work. I used to have good timing. Now in real life a conversation will be whizzing along and a line will pop into my head and by the time I write it down and get someone to read it, the moment and the context will have disappeared. Often everything will grind to a halt while I remind people what I was referring to.”

Roger Ebert’s Journal: Tweet! Tweet! Tweet!

Yuban waiting for this

Jane Berliss-Vincent — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 19:35:04 +0000

Fingerprint biometrics have been used for security for some time, but finally they’re being applied to something really important–coffee making. The Xelsis Digital ID saves preference information for up to six people, and brews your cup your way at the swipe of a finger. Could have implications for making other appliances easier to use, assuming you have both fingerprints and lots of (Star)bucks–the Xelsis will set you back $2,500.

Bornrich: Xelsis Digital ID Coffee Machine serves by fingerprint identification

Beam me up, Numi

Jane Berliss-Vincent — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 16:05:10 +0000

Most of us have wallets or keychains bursting with loyalty and membership cards for various stores, and it doesn’t even take having a disability to experience difficulty finding and retrieving them when needed. Enter the Numi Key, which stores all your card information electronically, then lets you retrieve as needed and wirelessly transmit to a POS device. The display looks pretty legible (can we beg for a voice-output option in a future release?), and the buttons could well be tactilely discernable.

The Gadgeteer: Consolidate your loyalty cards into one device

Buddy system

Jane Berliss-Vincent — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 18:22:25 +0000

We’ve written before about automated Twitter messages as a communication strategy, but most examples were either hacks or left little leeway for consciously choosing a desired message. Enter Buddy Radio, a simple device currently being tested with elders by the UK’s National Health Service. Turning the dial sends one of several messages indicating the user’s mood–not clear whether this is preprogrammed or personalizable. Apparently it works not only with Twitter, but also with Facebook, email, and so on. It’s currently being evaluated as a signaling system; off-site family, friends, and other message recipients would presumably be able to interpret when a user needs some type of intervention services. But we have cause to wish it were commercially available now so that people in hospice, recovering from serious injury, etc., would have a nearly effortless way to just provide brief but treasured messages to their circles.

Fast Company: Could oversharing save the lives of seniors?