Tweet spot
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.”
Buddy system
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.
Dog bytes man
As usual, the development dollars are going into assistive technology for the canids. Cf. Puppy Tweets, which translates doggie activities into one of 500 texts (e.g., “Guess what I’m licking right now.” We’ll pass). With a little linguistic tinkering, we could see this turned into a useful way for people with various types of physical or cognitive disabilities to communicate, whether practical–a specific movement could send a message requesting help–or social.
Engadget: Puppy tweets will turn your pooper into a world-class Twitterer
As it is Twitten
Carmen Gonzales has come up with a summary of pretty convincing arguments about why Twitter has made a huge difference for people with physical disabilities. Some of these involve the potential for generating and receiving information with little effort, but there is also the fact that if everyone is communicating in 140 characters, assistive tech users or slow typists will be able to generate messages of an acceptable length with less effort than, say, typing a full email. There are parallel arguments to be made for cognitive access as well.
Twitup: Twitter remaking the persona of the physically challenged
Tweet board of youth
OK, so Tyler Menscher, the first kid to Tweet in utero, is almost a year old, and probably still going through Twitter withdrawl. Fear not, boychik; someone has hacked a Fisher Price Activity Sensor so that sustained pressure on one of multiple inserted pictures results in the sending of a preprogrammed tweet. It’s called the Twoddler (is no word starting with “t” and a vowel safe these days?), but the technical concept has intriguing implications for folks who would benefit from a very simple communication device to relay messages to anyone outside their immediate vicinity.
Google Goggles, we accept you
Today’s Google press event foretold some innovations that could make finding information easier for everyone, including people with disabilities. With our usual reservations about accuracy, we’re intrigued by query-by-voice technology. Google Goggles will let you submit a photo and return information about the subject; not new technology, but we’ll look forward to Google’s spin on it. The ability to include near-real-time Twitter feeds in search results could be useful in emergencies and other situations where people need fast information access, particularly to Deaf people for whom other information channels may not be as accessible. But we’d give the “most innovative” award to a cellphone-based capability that will predict what you’re searching for based on your geographic location, saving people with dexterity disabilities a lot of keystrokes–e.g., type in “c…u…” in New York and it would bring up a list of CUNY campuses; type it in Chicago and get information on handling chronic heartbreak.
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?