A-Tech Review

The Global Opportunity of Always-On

What I call Always-On technology, sensors and monitors using a wireless network as an application platform, sounds like science fiction. It also sounds like an opportunity that can only be real in the most advanced countries, like the U.S. and Japan.

But that is simply not the case.

The Singapore blog Dream Ink details some of the real opportunities, in discussing the need to treat seniors better:

• China will have 174 million senior citizens aged over 60 in 2010, and the number will peak in 2030 when the national population hits 1.5 billion.
• About 80 million Indians — more than the entire population of Britain — are over 60 at present. This figure is projected to touch 100 million by 2013 and 198 million by 2030.

Singapore itself now has 291,000 elderly and this number will double by 2020.

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.

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.