A-Tech Review

Happy Spin Betrays Unhappy Truths

Back when I was writing about the World of Always-On, wireless routers as platforms for applications which live in the air, no one was following me.

Now they are. Mostly they're doing it with happy fun talk, but they are following.

Here is a good example. It's the blog for Gilbert Guide, a nursing care directory. It calls Always-On applications "ambient intelligence environments," which is a fancy way of saying that sensors track the patient's activities, reducing the load on caregivers.

I don't object to any of this, including the renaming of the technology to something complex and forbidding. What I object to is the presumed sales method and the power relationships built inside it.

When Always-On applications are sold as a system, to the family, the patient loses power (and so does the family -- it's a system sale like buying the nursing home itself). When the application is sold directly to the patient or the family, when you're able to get a heart or sugar monitor at BestBuy, or get the plans for a complete home makeover at Make Magazine, now you have the power and control.

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.)

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.

More Than Words Are Needed

Following its Florida conference last week, the Assistive Technology industry Association hosted a full-day of gab in Orlando, where corporate executives tried to talk things up.

IBM was the main driver of the program, and the result was a business case with numbers like these:

• 155 million people in the U.S. need accessibility technologies of some type.
• Disabled Americans represent $175 billion in discretionary income.

Big numbers. But if the opportunity is so enormous, why are so few corporations pursuing it?

The reason is that this market, by its nature, does not speak for itself. Most of those who speak for the disabled are advocates, who speak from a non-profit or government viewpoint. They mainly see this area as a cost, not as an opportunity.

When your body is locked in a nursing home, or you are locked in your own home by blindness or paralysis, it's very hard to turn that buying power into a market force which must be respected.

Until the people within this market gain more control of their money, and demand entry to the mainstream, this won't change.

So I have the most optimism here regarding the aging of America, especially the baby boomers (of which I am one). We are accustomed to whining, to demanding action and holding out vast sums of money to those who meet our needs.

One Giant Step For Open Source

There is a new name on our blogroll today, Chris Hofstadter's Blind Confidential.

Let me tell you why.

Chris, who worked on the development of the JAWS screen reader at Freedom Scientific, is the first major assistive technology developer to represent the power of open source. He is also the first to understand the need for those in the industry to get closer to Universities, and the research work they are doing.

Open source can help in that effort as well. There is a growing struggle in the University community between those who see the purpose of research as aiding mankind and those who see it as aiding the University. Those who practice the former want more openness in every way, and this includes support for open source.

Is the iPhone Really a Step Forward?

The Apple iPhone is considered a giant step forward in user interface design.

But is that true for everyone?

Just like current phones, the iPhone features tiny icons. While it can be programmed for voice commands, that programming requires good vision -- it can't be done by voice alone.

The sad fact is that the cellular revolution has happened with almost no input, and no attention paid, to those with disabilities. It's a welter of proprietary designs and interfaces. When you change phones you lose everything you put into the old one.

And from here the iPhone doesn't really look different.