Just you weight
PhD candidate Fabian Hemmert is doing a lot of thinking about how cell phones can convey information by changing their weight distribution, width, or “emotional” state. The ability to provide navigational information by shifting the phone’s weight to correspond to the desired direction is very promising as an aid for blind individuals, particularly those who also have limitations to their hearing and/or their fingertip sensitivity.
Ubergizmo: Shape shifting cell phone prototype interacts with you
Washy Talky (no joke; that’s the name)
On the list of major appliances we wish had voice output, a clothes washer is a minor item. But who can resist one that speaks in English, Hindi, and Tamil, and has such an amusing name? It seems to have several other features that blind and cognitively disabled users — not its initial targeted market — will benefit from, including step-by-step instructions and automatic cycle selection based on load size and overall filthiness (not the filthiness of your overalls…).
Talk radius
Hmmm…a headset that bypasses touch screen access problems by enabling both audio output and speech input? Sounds like a product designed for blind (and some learning/cognitively disabled) folks, but it’s actually a mainstream product from Bluetrek that was shown at CES last week.
Ubergizmo: Bluetrek Dial 2DO Bluetooth headset does text to voice to text
Bumps in the Road Apple?
Apple’s much-expected mobile tablet gizmo may have tactile feedback — electronic bumps on its touchscreen surface to orient your fingers for typing, for example. Such a feature could help blind users find on-screen controls, and even provide braille or other tactile output.
Apple Patent Application Reveals a Bumpy Tablet - apple tablet - Gizmodo
Powerzoa
Powerzoa is a set of 6 cubes that fit between an electric plug and an outlet. We like that each cube sends information on power usage for the associated device to “a personalized website where you can schedule appliances to turn on and off automatically.” We really like that each cube has a distinct tactile graphic (star, plus sign, etc.), so that if they’re used with multiple items plugged into a power strip, it’d be easy for blind people to know which plug goes to which device.
Coming to blows with the iPhone
Blower is a new app that uses a standard iPhone–no hardware add-ons required–to blow enough air to extinguish birthday candles. Obvious accessibility use: extinguishing birthday candles, for people with respiratory disabilities. Not-so-obvious use: inclusion in other apps to provide discrete signals to blind individuals, for example when a reminder pops up. (Discrete, that is, if the leaf-blower audio can be eliminated.)
People with Up
What do the films How The Grinch Stole Christmas and Up have in common? Besides (despite?) featuring unapologetic curmudgeons as primary characters, they both represent accessibility landmarks: Grinch was the first commercially-released DVD to have a closed-captioned option, and Up is the first to have the audio-described (DVS) track available for sale on iTunes. Of course, you don’t have to be blind to appreciate the DVS version–it could find the same drive-time audience as audio books, which means there would be more DVS-only versions of movies available, which would benefit blind people…yeah, we could live with that.
Amended to add: apparently more careful research than mine (thank you, codeman) has raised doubts about Grinch; with luck, an equally befuddled future investigator will find clearer documentation for the historic value of Up.