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MIT Developing Wheelchair That Listens When You Speak

by Darren Murph, posted Sep 22nd 2008 at 11:17AM


Oh MIT, do the wonders that come from your halls ever cease? Yet another remarkable development is emerging from the fabled institution, and this time it's an autonomous wheelchair that can remember important places in a given building (read: the hospital ward, your house, the local arcade, etc.) and then take you there on command.

In other words, the voice recognizing chair could understand phrases of direction, such as "head to the kitchen," and it would take on the burden of navigating the halls while letting the rider chill. The researchers are implementing a system that can learn and adapt to the individual user, and in the future, they'd like to add in a collision-avoidance system and mechanical arms to help patients lift and move objects.

Say, can regular joes / janes buy these? We're totally feeling this over the Segway.

[From: MIT via medGadget]
Engadget

Researchers Create Tongue-Based Communication Method

by Steven Kim, posted Aug 26th 2008 at 4:22PM


It turns out that the tongue isn't tied to the spinal cord (had we paid better attention in Bio101, we'd have known that), which goes a long way towards keeping it unimpared in the event of spinal cord injury. A team at Georgia Tech is developing a tongue-based apparatus for disabled people that, which not as elegantly packaged as the GRAViTONUS device we've seen earlier, fashions a pointing device from a small tongue-mounted magnet and sensors near the cheeks. The team has promised interactivity way beyond what can be done with "sip and puff" input methods; think "mouth replaces mouse" and you've got the idea. Hopefully Mavis Beacon tongue-typing and the incorporation of haptic feedback won't be far behind. [From: Hack A Day]

"Robo-Moth" Gives Hope to Amputees

by Ryan Rayhill, posted Nov 8th 2007 at 4:54PM



Further hope that victims of paralysis or amputation could one day reclaim some form of motion came this week in the form of a robotically-enhanced, tobacco-chewing moth.

The Society for Neuroscience's yearly gathering in San Diego saw a presentation on research in which a tobacco hornworm moth's brain was connected to electrodes and amplifiers at the base of a fairly common kit of robotic parts. When the insect's highly developed eyes, evolved for evading predators and mating, would shift left or right, the attached robotic parts would react accordingly.

In order to get the "robo-moth" to shift it's eyes, the scientists placed it in tube with a 14-ich tall revolving wall covered in vertical stripes. The moths, which only live about a week, would then track the stripes resulting in motion with the longest tracking time lasting nearly a minute and a half.

While limited at the moment, the device's use in harnessing electric impulses in such a small brain gives way to added possibilities from using insects as bomb-detectors to the aforementioned ambitions for practical human applications.

From LA Times

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Touchless Keyboard for the Disabled

by Ryan Rayhill, posted Oct 23rd 2007 at 2:32PM


Using our digits to type out innumerable amounts of LOLs and ROFLMAOs on crumb-laden keyboards is something most people take for granted. But for the physically handicapped, or more specifically, those without the use of their hands and fingers have a much more difficult time navigating a computer keyboard, much less anything else.


Using your digits to type out innumerable amounts of LOLs and ROFLMAOs on crumb-laden keyboards is something most people take for granted. But the physically disabled, or, more specifically, those without the use of their hands and fingers, have a much more difficult time navigating a computer keyboard.

Voice-recognition programs such as Dragon Naturally Speaking have gone a long way towards helping people who can't use a keyboard with a computer, but it looks like there will soon be some other options: Japanese company Actbrise recently developed a touch-free keyboard for people without the use of their hands.

Using a head-mounted sensor, the keyboard, which hangs over the top of your screen, picks up your noggin's movements and transmits the data to the computer as text. The system can also simply be used as a mouse to navigate your computer's windows and documents.

Now, here's the annoying part: The system costs $2,567, which makes Dragon Naturally Speaking suddenly seem like the bargain of the century.

From Akihabara News

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Target Sued Over Site's Visually-Impared Accessibility

Inventors Use Hand Gestures to Kill the Mouse (and Keyboard)

Target Sued Over Site's Visually-Impaired Accessibility

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Oct 15th 2007 at 11:22AM

Target.com
A new ruling requires that Target.com and other sites allow for keyboard navigation and use alternate tags for images in order to make the sites accessible for the visually-impaired. These requirements sound simple enough, but may prove difficult for all of those dynamic, Flash-enabled pages that are popular among e-commerce sites. That means this ruling could cost site providers like Target, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy a lot of development money while web agencies rejoice.

US District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, of the Court for the Northern District of California, ruled that the case of the "National Federation of the Blind vs Target" is eligible for class-action status, meaning that the suit against Target can go forward in court and make the company liable for the site's accessibility issues. Patel ruled that "the inaccessibility of Target.com impeded full and equal enjoyment of goods and services offered in Target stores."

Target has attempted to have the case thrown numerous times, but but has failed.

From Tech Crunch

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