One ringy dingy
We understand the ringtones that soothe a savage breast, and the ones that let teenagers hear sounds that old men of 25 would miss. But the Japanese Ringing Tone Library has come up with a tone that is supposed to…clear your sinuses?! Reluctantly, we guess it might be useful for people who can’t blow their nose in traditional ways, but we’re also interested in what else is up the JRTL’s sleeves. “Ringtone makes your skin beautiful” is one announced project; we’re hoping for something like “ringtone stops your back from itching.”
Human writes
A few months ago, we had an interesting discussion about ways to force users to take typing breaks to avoid repetitive strain injuries. Here’s a solution to the opposite problem: Write or Die, which checks to see if you’re meeting your writing goals. If you’re taking breaks too often or for too long, it performs the punishment you’ve selected, from changing the text color to even deleting what you’ve written. Could we get Don’t Write or Die, which would have the same punishments if you don’t take a break?
And so to bed
There are two observations from a New York Times report on the Las Vegas Market furniture show that have potential implications for people with mobility/dexterity disabilities. One is that the public at large is choosing to do more computing in the bedroom, which may well result in more design options and greater comfort becoming available to computer users who have to work from bed. The other is a promising solution to an often pressing problem: how do you get your partner to stop snoring if you don’t have enough gross motor function to nudge them? The answer is the button on a remote that temporarily inclines their side of the bed, tilting them so the cacophony goes away. If the button can be activated with minimal pressure, it could be a relationship saver.
Heinzsight
Forget the iPad; the first great design innovation of the ’10s might be the revised Heinz ketchup packet. It will now let you peel off a corner and dip or tear off the top and squeeze, which among other things may accommodate people with a wider range of dexterity limitations. Care to condiment?
Bass-o-matic
The elegantly named ButtKicker translates low frequency sounds into vibrations on whatever you attach it to–the press release suggests “chair, car, or drum throne.” We’d guess Deaf folks will find all kinds of applications for it, both for practical uses (alert systems?) and simply for having a non-auditory way of experiencing musical, cinema, and video gaming environments.
May bear a RFID
We haven’t run across any RFID applications for awhile now, so we were happy to hear the rumors that an RFID reader may be built into the next-gen iPhone. The initial vision is that this would facilitate automatic connection to wireless networks–a laudable goal in itself–but what if it could also read other RFID tags to enable environmental control, information transfer, or…?!
Electronista: Rumor: 4th-gen iPhone to be equipped with RFID reader
Muscling in
An assortment of folks from Microsoft and academia are working on a muscle-computer gestural interface; the current examples show how you can play Guitar Hero with an air guitar, control your MP3 player while jogging, and open your car door when your hands are full. All units are wired at present, but wireless versions are in the works. Hoping this gets extended to more types of environmental control applications by people who have little or no hand movement.
Etre: Muscle-Computer Interfaces: Play Guitar Hero without a guitar