Access on Main Street

Hooking up a usable world, one mainstream product at a time.

Tune in, turn on

Posted by Jane Berliss-Vincent 28 June 2010

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

Posted by Jane Berliss-Vincent 24 June 2010

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?

Posted by Jane Berliss-Vincent 17 June 2010

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

Look, Mazda, no hands

Posted by Jane Berliss-Vincent 1 June 2010

The Swing Pro Solo Auto concept basically does away with the steering wheel. Instead, you make the car turn simply by leaning in the direction you want to go. This has obvious benefits for upper-limb amputees and anyone who has difficulty with grasping or turning a wheel. We can also see elimination of the wheel as improving driving comfort for people who are obese or pregnant. Finally, for people with cognitive conditions such as left/right dyslexia, leaning is probably going to require less effort and allow faster reaction times than steering.

Yanko Design: Swing Pro Solo Auto

ShapeWriter

Posted by Jane Berliss-Vincent 1 June 2010

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

Eye candy

Posted by Jane Berliss-Vincent 25 May 2010

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

Wii will all go together when we go

Posted by Jane Berliss-Vincent 17 May 2010

Here’s a cool hands-free wheelchair control setup, based off a Wii remote. It’s a high school science project for now, but has tremendous potential for being a low-cost commercial strategy that could significantly improve chair design.

Engadget: Student moves quadriplegics with Wiimote wheelchair control

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