A-Tech Review

What Cellular Teaches Assistive Technology

What is most vital in creating an active market is real competition. (Picture from Vision Connection.)

This is a problem in assistive technology, where we usually have maybe one and one half competitors. That is, Microsoft delivers, and open source tries to catch up. Those are the only two choices. Thus Microsoft is able to use its technology lead to dictate to those needing assistive technologies, then use their needs to dictate to the rest of the market.

Thus it doesn't matter that there are multiple vendors within the Microsoft space, in, say, screen readers. There aren't enough to create a competitive market, because they are all working on the same platform.

If open source could match Microsoft, feature-for-feature, and match Microsoft's delivery schedule, date-for-date, and if open source were also as able to innovate on behalf of its customers as Microsoft has been, then we would have a competitive market, even if Apple never entered it.

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.

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.

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.

The Twin Purposes of Assistive Technology

There are two main purposes to assistive technology, although they both come down to one word:

Productivity.

On the one hand, assistive technologies make more people productive. Can't see the keyboard? Can't hear the prompts? Can't move anything but your eyes? We can make you productive. Or we can help you learn, which in turn will lead to a marketable skill.

The second purpose of productive technology is to make caregivers productive. Give more people the same level of care, or allow it to all be done at home longer, and both sides in the relationship benefit. The patient gets better, more compassionate care, while the caregiver's productivity gains could lead to a higher salary (especially if the technology takes skill to manage).

Both these goals come with a deadline, of course.

A Tale of Two Chairs

ActionOnline has two posts today about wheelchair design, which represent the hard choices facing every handicapped person on a budget.

First there is the Action Chair designed by Randy Kwapis for his son, Matt. It looks like any other chair. What makes it different is a shock absorber that lets it go through grass and over sidewalk cracks easily.

Kwapis designed the chair so his son could play, and it's a great little chair. The company that now sells the chair as the AC-2 is called Mobility Sports, and he's continuing to try to improve it, for example allowing it to fit easily in a car.

It's not a cheap chair (no price is listed on the Web site) but in production quantities it should be affordable.

Another Form of Computer Assist

We often think of assistive technology as meaning systems that allow folks with disabilities to use computers.

But it's a lot more than that.

It can also mean computerized systems that make life for the disabled more livable.

One quick example today, from the United Spinal Association blog.

Terry Moakley, the group's historian, notes that a computer measuring seat pressure, which became a traveling seat clinic, was a life-changing technology for many people.

Most people who can't walk also can't feel their butts. They may stay in the same position for days, in a seat that puts pressure on one place more than others. They may develop horrible bed sores, until the only way to get through is to stay in bed, to become truly inactive.

He writes:

Our veteran members could have their seating pressure checked, and then either through adjustment to the personal wheelchair or a prescription for a better cushion, be empowered to sit in the wheelchair appropriately. “Weight shifts” in the chair every 15 minutes are still highly recommended by therapists (by mine just two weeks ago), but I’m betting that seating pressure computer saved our members thousands of days of bed rest, having prevented many pressure sores.