A-Tech Review

One Ring To Rule Them All

There are so many disabilities, and their needs contradict. Getting them onto the same technology page may be impossible.

So Mike Davies, a leader in trying to build accessibility technology into open source through Isolani, has come to believe. (The ad, on behalf of Joe Clark's Accessibility Research Project, is from Mike's site.)

Recently Davies called out some of the groups he feels haven't met user needs:

GAWDS has failed. Accessifyforum has failed. Accessites is fundamentally flawed. WCAG 2.0 is in trouble.

Naturally, a spirited discussion followed. Mike was quoted, writing "we need a community of people working on the Web (as a content producer, as a browser - or plugin - vendor, as an assistive technology provider), focused on accessibility. And that we simply don't have." Some users attacked Mike while others, like Mike Cherim, defended the efforts he derided.

The truth is something common to open source. Money. Money is needed to get work done, to have that work incorporated into Web standards, and to turn that work into Web sites that are accessible to all.

The money's failure to materialize in the free market is a chicken-and-egg problem. We want something to invest in. I need money to create that. You need protection for the resulting IP to get the money. Which takes you out of the Web standards game entirely, because imposing a fee for using Web standards is just impractical.

The New Platform is a Stick

When I was writing about Always-On technology, back in 2003, at the heart of my talk was the idea that a WiFi router should become an application platform, holding memory and processing power independent of the computer it's attached to.

This would allow medical monitoring, home inventory, or home automation processes to continue even when the main PC was turned off for the night, since these applications have to work all the time to be useful.

Now I'm learning about a new application platform built along those lines. It's the stick memory.

You probably know about memory sticks. These are memory chips connected to a USB port. You plug in the USB stick and gain access to the memory. This caused the final obsolescence of floppy disks, because a memory stick could have gigabytes of data and a floppy just a meg or two.

But it's now being used as an application platform as well. My first initiation into this was RoboForm, a program meant to hold all your personal passwords, sent me by the man who launched this blog, Martin Bayne. Seems they have a version called RoboForm2Go, which runs off a USB stick. This solves a big problem I have, namely the fact that I use a laptop. With RoboForm2Go, I can run my passwords off a stick, and use the same stick when I'm on the road, using my laptop.

One more important point. Once you can load software onto a USB stick, you can load it onto any device with USB memory and run it from there. You could have a screenreader loaded in your MP3 player, for instance, which would run when you're at a friend's computer. (That's what the illustration above shows, from RJ Cooper & Associates.)

Government Support for Assistive Tech Falling

The need for assistive technology limits one's ability to make a living, and may eliminate it.

Or, you may find yourself at a Catch-22. You don't have money, you can get money if you have assistive technology, but you don't have money.

This is a good job for government, but governments have other priorities.

A recent UN Survey showed that only half the world's governments had made progress, over the last 10 years, in meeting 22 key goals for assistive technology. Even in those countries that have made progress, as Inclusive Technologies notes, progress has been piecemeal.

And it's going to get more piecemeal. A blog for speech pathologists, called What Do You Hear What Do You Say, reports that many programs for the disabled have their funding slashed in the 2008 budget submitted by President Bush.

Always-On and Assisted Living

A recent Minneapolis Star-Tribune story illustrates what I call The World of Always On, and the enormous power of assistive technology based on wireless networking.

The headline most will see is a proposal to give tax credits for assistive technologies. In this it was carrying water for Ecumen, a non-profit in the business of building senior care centers that has lately focused on technology enabling lower costs and better care, specifically installing monitors from QuietCare in patient rooms.

HealthSense, which is based in Minnesota, also sells a sensor network called eNeighbor, essentially a movement sensor that monitors patients over a wireless network and alerts caregivers when patterns suddenly change.

Europe Takes the Lead in TeleMedicine

Medical help delivered by the Internet is going to be a huge industry, absolutely huge. A small investment in this research today can reap enormous dividends. And much of the chip and networking technology needed was developed in the U.S.

But we're giving that lead away, because it's Europe that is making the investment.

A 20-member consortium dubbed the SOPRANO Project is going to put 12 million Euros into practical investigations of what I call Always-On technology.

The World of Always On, which consumed many of my efforts in 2003-2004, posits using a WiFi network as a platform for applications which live in the air. RFID chips, sensors, and motes in our environment, and in us, constantly report via wireless data radio to programs that are always-on, perhaps in the WiFi router itself. These programs analyze the data, and give alerts when conditions warrant, perhaps to the patient, or a caregiver, a doctor, or an ambulance.

In the SOPRANO Project 600 people across Europe will test the technologies, aiming to find solutions that work, user interfaces that are comfortable, and an a defined application platform that can then be used by industry.

Open Source piggy-backing just for you

Since I write about open source as part of my living, I have to admit Microsoft's dominance in assistive technology is galling.

But this is more so.

Sun is bragging that its new ODF Converter, which will move files between the Open Office ODF format and that of Microsoft Office, is its big contribution to assistive technology.

"Right now, our focus is to ensure that people using assistive devices are able to join in with OpenDocument workflows," Simon Phipps (right), chief open-source officer at Sun said. "Because Microsoft hasn't published interfaces for those devices to use, they are all hard-wired to Office 2003, and their users can't migrate to other software."

That's spin, Simon. You're blaming Microsoft for not having interfaces, as an excuse for your piss-poor performance in delivering any assistive help in your product category. So you expect blind, deaf and/or handicapped users to all grab Open Office and your converter software, rather than use Office, which has that support natively?

Know Your Rights and Sue for Assistive Technology

You have a right to software you can use, regardless of your disability.

There are a number of laws asserting this, as Deafgeek notes.

The Americans with Disabilities Act, The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.  The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004. The Rehabilitation Amendments -- they are all there to be used.

Trouble is they are not used often enough.

Fast Help for Disabled Learners

People who teach kids with disabilities, whether physical, intellectual, or merely learning, have a tough time coming up with aids they know will work, in-time to use them.

There are, when you break it down, so many things that people must learn to be successful -- reading, writing, arithmetic, critical thinking -- and teachers are really given very little time to teach it all because most kids pick it all up naturally, and only have to be presented the information in order to get going.

Open source getting its assistive act together

The open source movement is starting to get its assistive technology act together.

The latest version of the Linux Screen Reader, which runs in the GNOME operating environment (there's another graphical user interface for Linux called KDE), is now out.

Version 0.4 now supports such things as Braille output, cyclic commands (as when you touch a key multiple times to get information on a Web 2.0 site), and its own icon, which can tell you (or others) when it is running.

Now want to get even more bang for your assistive technology buck?

Stop being victims, become advocates

It is vital that in every area of assistive technology, patients avoid the role of victim and become advocates.

Here's a good case study of what's possible.

Doug Rose is a tech writer for a small California paper called the Times-Standard. He's also blind. In addition to his reporting, he and his wife  Patti are members of the  region's technology consortium. 

Real Help for Dementia Victims

We often think of assistive technology as being items that help you use technology, or items that help you get through the day.

How about items that save your soul?

That's what Francesca of the blog Towering Flat in London pointed me to today.  It's dubbed CIRCA, and it's produced by the computing department at the University of Dundee.

Here's how Francesca explains it:

It is an interactive interface which allows patients to freely reminesce by choosing between a selection of songs and photos. Often progressive states of dementia lead to silence and a period of non-communication, and these memory boxes act as a trigger for patients and their relatives, as well as their caregivers. They also lessen the burden of care on overworked and understaffed residences.