Access on Main Street

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?

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

ShapeWriter is a mainstream iPhone/Pod/Pad app that lets users perform data entry by gliding a finger (or a capacitive-friendly stylus?) across a virtual keyboard, which is likely to be accommodating for a range of people with dexterity disabilities who find standard keyboards problematic. As a bonus, ShapeWriter includes word prediction, so that even the gliding is kept to a minimum.

AT Mac: ShapeWriter - iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad Typing Without Lifting Your Finger

Eyegaze technology has long been a specialized input option for individuals with near-total paralysis, but it’s been expensive, cumbersome, and not always reliable. Now researchers at Dartmouth have come up with a promising mainstream–mainstream!!–eyegaze technology for the Nokia tablet. We’re opticmistic that this can be applied to other devices as well.

Ubergizmo: Eyeballs get tracked thanks to new algorithm

Here’s an interesting addition to the realm of gesture-based technology: Lycra gloves decorated with 20 multicolored patches. The colors are not just…umm…fashionable, they also help the gesture be matched more easily to a prerecorded image database and therefore be interpreted more accurately. Will the database include images recorded of people with dexterity disabilities, people with small hands, etc.?

Wired: Gesture-Based Computing Uses $1 Lycra Gloves

Toshiba is exploring artificial texture for touch screens.  By changing the charge on a surface film, the device will present the user with simulated rough, smooth, or fuzzy textures.  This could work well for blind users, who would be able to distinguish buttons and controls on a touchscreen, one of the major barriers to those ubiquitous input systems.

Toshiba brings texture to touch video — Engadget

New lie detector technology is being based on the enhanced blood flow to part of the prefrontal cortex that occurs when we prevaricate. With all the work going into “mind-reading” technology, it’s kind of fun to think about this same strategy being applied to computer control for people with near-total paralysis. Could it work for you to think, “The check’s in the mail” to emulate a left mouse click, and “I’ll call you this weekend” for a double-click?

Gizmodo: Brain scanning lie detectors may be used in court soon