Augmented Ability: Assistive Tech Gets Smart

When I walked into an Arlington, VA coffee shop to meet Candice Jordan, I felt the usual broken-hearted vigilance I become when I'm looking for a person I've never met. People are usually bully at producing obvious torso-linguistic communication signals that indicate they're also waiting for a stranger, but Candice wouldn't exist looking for me: She'd be listening. She did display a few great cues, thankfully. A patient, doe-eyed Labrador retriever named Austria rested by her side, and a clutch of electronic gadgets were spread before her on the table.

Candice likewise had a Google Glass headset perched on the bridge her nose. It was this that I'd really come to talk to her almost. After we exchanged pleasantries, she gave me a quick rundown on her recent life—one in which smart assistive technology is playing an increasingly of import function. AI-enabled eyesight services, smart hearing aids, and other intuitive, connected applied science is changing the game for people with disabilities.

Vision Quest

Candice lost her sight entirely in higher in 1998, at the historic period of 21, waking upward blind ane morning later months of declining vision because of worsening, inoperable cataracts. She worked with her university to complete her degree in psychology so obtained a master'southward degree in rehabilitation counseling; she's been working for the District of Columbia regime's Rehabilitation Services Administration since 2007.

And so why Google Glass? Candice uses them with Aira, a new service she subscribes to: It connects her with a human agent who uses video feed from the headset or a phone's camera to describe her environment for her and help navigate her through it. The amanuensis likewise has access to a dashboard of information almost her preferences, multiple maps, and information about her physical location. Aira can tell her as much or as picayune equally she wants to know about her surroundings.

Suman Kanuganti, CEO and founder of Aira, said his concept arose from a time he was on a phone-camera video telephone call with a visually dumb friend. He asked his friend to hold his phone camera up, facing outward from his caput, and then proceeded to describe what he saw in the friend's kitchen to him. On subsequent calls, they performed the practice outdoors using a Google Glass headset Kanuganti had acquired.

"I was walking with him as I saturday in San Diego, and I realized, I can pull upward maps and other information for him while he's moving," Kanuganti said. "He said, Suman, what we're doing is for fun, merely there are millions of blind people for whom a service like this would be life-irresolute."

Candice Jordan navigates effectually an outdoor mall with the help of Aira (photo: Michelle Z. Donahue)

Candice handed me her Google Glass and telephone and told me to have at it. I really wasn't certain where to first, but the agent she connected with that day, Patrick, took the lead.

He described the store, telling me where I could find the ordering counter and a shelf of mugs and providing some details about what was on the walls and who was immediately nearby. Nosotros then made our way to the exit (the door swung outward, Patrick noted). Then we were in a vivid courtyard ringed past shops, where Patrick told us it was 49 degrees and sunny.

As Austria nosed into the vestibule of a Thai eating place, Patrick mentioned nosotros could also opt for sushi, grilled chicken, Lebanese, shoes, or discount designer dress. Candice asked what other stores were effectually; when he mentioned a housewares outlet, she asked him to direct usa there so she could look for a stovetop griddle.

Armed again with her headset and telephone, Candice followed the ensuing left-right- straight-ahead directions, avoiding obstacles with Austria's help and alerts from Patrick. She stepped gingerly down into a curb cutting when Patrick told her information technology was at that place; equally we waited at a crosswalk, he had her scan left and right then he could look for oncoming vehicles. All clear.

In the shop, she switched to using her phone'south camera when the Wi-Fi connection fizzled, causing Patrick's video feed to freeze. The highlight of our day, Candice said, was the moment when a store clerk stopped by and asked if she needed any aid.

"I love being able to say, 'No, I've got it, thanks!' when people inquire me that now," Candice said. "Earlier, any time I needed annihilation in a store, I'd have to find customer service, wait for them to bring someone to help me, and so have them go through my list. And considering you need help, then often y'all take to exist nice, and kind of market yourself, and educate them. Well, if it's Sabbatum at 7 a.m. and it'due south the but time I have to go to the grocery shop, who wants to do all that? At present I don't need to."

Tech Enablement

According to a 2022 report from the U.S. Demography, more than 56 one thousand thousand people, or nearly twenty pct of the nation's population, are living with a physical or cognitive impairment of some kind. Aira is just i example of an emerging segment of smart technology that's being designed specifically with this population in listen. The ability to connect to myriad streams of data, whether through a new piece of hardware or software and apps for devices, is playing heavily into how these products and applications are being developed, with the goal of helping people lead more than independent, inclusive, and fulfilling lives.

The array of bachelor solutions is dizzying. Lechal, which started every bit a navigation assist for the visually dumb, has developed GPS-continued shoes with haptics feedback: They buzz to aid you navigate as y'all walk. New Jersey-based Oticon makes a fix of smart hearing aids that tin be programmed to prompt other devices in your dwelling house to perform a cascade of tasks according to your proximity or fourth dimension of day—automatically closing the garage door, locking the house, and turning the thermostat down when y'all leave for work, for example.

In Europe, SpeechCode created a arrangement to produce highly detailed QR codes that can be included on packaging, signage, or whatsoever other printed fabric. When scanned by the user via an app (which helps locate and center the code), the text from the package or sign encoded in the code is translated to an sound file available in 40 dissimilar languages. And Dimple, a programmable stick-on button for Android devices, uses about-field communication (NFC) to launch apps, telephone settings, and even control other smart habitation appliances at a touch.

Myriad other devices exist to help individuals adapt to their detail disability. As illustration, a single adaptive-tech loan program at Easter Seals of Massachusetts' Assistive Engineering Regional Eye holds 1,200 devices for people to borrow and test out. High-tech options include eyegaze devices (these help you to admission a figurer or communication aid by controlling a mouse with your eyes), text-to-voice communication machines, and smartwatch-like wristbands that relay mobile phone messages. The overall concept is to enable people with disabilities to automate aspects of their lives that are otherwise cumbersome, as well as to make information more than easily attainable.

Easter Seals of Massachussetts' Assistive Technology Regional Eye

"This idea of having continued devices in your dwelling, a smart home, actually is a boon to people with all kinds of disabilities," said Henry Claypool, executive vice president of the American Association of People with Disabilities, and managing director of policy for University of California San Francisco's Customs Living Policy Center. "Greater independence, a improve quality of life, and integration and inclusion—those are hallmarks of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Connected devices have tremendous potential to enable people to alive as part of a community, instead of having to motility to a more restricted environment where everything is brought to them."

It'due south a robust topic of academic research and evolution, also. At the Rochester Establish of Technology, Professor Matt Huenerfauth is working on developing tools such as an American Sign Language (ASL) trainer using a Microsoft Xbox Kinect camera. The system uses animations of common ASL gestures to "spellcheck" a learner's signs: the user tin copy the animation'due south movements, and because the program can "encounter" the user'south movements via the Kinect camera, the software can flag or help the user correct errors in their signing. Huenerfauth is as well investigating how speech-recognition technology could be used to produce captions automatically for 1-on-1 or small-grouping meetings betwixt deaf and hearing participants.

And at the Georgia Tech Institute for People and Engineering science, Executive Managing director Beth Mynatt recently spoke of enquiry underway that uses sensing of the brain's motor cortex to recognize the formation of private words and phrases and translate them into auto-generated spoken communication or text. This thought, too, emerged out of work with ASL. While researching how to read and interpret brain signals, the team realized that the signal generated by a person physically signing an ASL letter or discussion was the aforementioned every bit when he or she thought most signing the letter of the alphabet.

But as promising and as useful as recent innovations take been, they need to be more than reliable, easier to use, and there for the long haul.

"It's tough to get individuals with disabilities to be the primary or initial adopters of some of these technologies, because if information technology fails, there are real consequences," said Eric Oddleifson, assistant vice president of Assistive Technology and Employment Services at Easter Seals of Massachusetts. "Many times, people will opt for something they know will work rather than try something new that may non work in the long term."

Informing Design, Connecting Solutions

1 obstacle to adoption is the piecemeal nature of current solutions. There are lots of gadgets and apps out there that can communicate with your telephone to relay information, or go on track of personal preferences, or automate your home. So maybe y'all have haptic shoes, if-this-then-that hearing aids, a smart thermostat, an Amazon Echo, and a dozen Wi-Fi-enabled LED lite bulbs. And each one of them has its own app. At what signal does managing all these solutions go more of an obstacle than the trouble they're meant to solve? Intelligent platforms that tin integrate a mix of products and user interfaces into a single, hands accessible ecosystem are still largely lacking.

Scott Moody is CEO of K4Connect, which has adult a smart-device ecosystem platform for people living with disabilities, chosen the K4Community, which can be used with nearly whatever connected device on the market across a variety of communications protocols.

"Products are oft designed for one demographic—say, millennials—then an oftentimes-feeble endeavour is made to arrange them," he told me. "Each device and application is adult to solve a specific issue, merely it can go to the point where i needs to have tens of apps or devices just to movement around their living room. All these applications and devices need to piece of work together—not simply your home-automation products only your wellness, wellness, content, and advice devices, besides."

To Moody'south betoken near production pattern, often the needs of the disabled aren't considered up front at all, fifty-fifty if the technology could, at its core, solve a key demand.

KR Liu (photo: courtesy KR Liu)

"By and large, a couple of big companies have been doing better almost being pioneers in trying to make their products more accessible," said KR Liu, the caput of sales and marketing strategy for Doppler Labs. "It's simply in the final few years that the tech manufacture has started to think about how it can be more inclusive, non only within companies but in design for consumers."

Lui suffers from severe hearing loss herself; she needs to use high-powered hearing aids instead of her company'due south sound-enhancing Here One earbuds. These wireless headphones can use GPS and location information to automatically shift book and filter settings, depending on whether the user is indoors, outdoors, at a concert or in a library. Though it was initially conceived of as a "music curation" tool for users to customize alive-music events, Liu'south presence on the team from very early on in the design process helped shape the earbuds into a production that could address multiple needs.

"I was involved in helping them navigate what it would have to have our engineering science reach a consumer like myself," Liu said. When the Here Ane earbuds were unveiled, the company received thousands of inquiries about whether the product could be used equally assistive hearing devices.

"There are consumers who need a niggling help in loud restaurants or an open up role but don't demand a $5,000 hearing aid," she said, some of whom may besides have been drawn by the idea of having a listening booster without the stigma of a full-blown hearing aid.

Hear One earbuds (photo courtesy Doppler Labs)

"You'll get meliorate, focused products by having someone with a disability involved in the blueprint procedure," Oddleifson said. "We take many clients who are involved with Harvard and MIT in creating new kinds of assistive engineering science, and their involvement is a crucial stride. Wouldn't information technology be squeamish if the big companies all had a person on their team, perchance with a disability, who could inform some of those blueprint decisions?"

That idea was a central tenet in the development process of a Braille smartwatch, and eventually, a Braille tablet, by the South Korean company Dot. Ane of Dot's front-role workers is a blind individual who is active in the local vision-impaired community. He likewise served equally Dot's starting time line of testing for prototype tweaks, said Alex Lee, a visitor representative.

"Nosotros become direct to him when there'southward something new," Lee said. "We say, 'What do you call up about this part? How would you change this?'" He has also brought friends and others from his mostly online customs into Dot's offices for beta testing and periodic chats with the engineers.

Backed past a successful crowdfunding campaign and with the first units shipped in April, the low-profile Dot watch features 4 Braille characters, which are driven by magnetically controlled pins. Connected via Bluetooth to a user'due south phone, the lookout confront can coil through text letters, due east-mails, and other short missives. And, of course, it tells fourth dimension—merely without the need for Siri to shout information technology out in a quiet room.

The Dot picket next to a phone displaying the Dot app.

Its appearance as an accompaniment was also important, Lee said, considering the company felt adaptive devices shouldn't reflexively be clunky. Aira'southward Kanuganti agreed, maxim his company was in the process of developing a headset where fashion doesn't accept a backseat. He noted that the Aira service is doubter, though, intended to work with whatever hardware the user chooses to use.

"Think about how much these phone companies worry well-nigh the pattern of their handsets, but how often it's really but sitting in your pocket," Kanuganti said. "But glasses—they're on your face, and they'd meliorate be absurd." Recall Tom Ford frames merely packing a quality camera, antennas, GPS, and proximity and altimeter sensors.

Taking a Walk

Eventually, Aira may be able to do even more for Candice that won't require her to talk to agents. "Aira" is a portmanteau of the term AI (artificial intelligence) and the name of the ancient Egyptian sunday god Ra, and the company eventually intends to use bogus intelligence to generate and communicate information to its subscribers based on their most mutual habits, routes, and routines. The goal is to describe upon image recognition technologies, information from previous conversations with agents, street and satellite maps, GPS, and concrete location to augment and occasionally replace what a man amanuensis relays to the Aira user.

"We're looking to leverage existing systems to do the work," Kanuganti said. "Y'all categorize private tasks, then push your training system to automate those things."

For now, though, Candice is still chatting with Patrick and the other agents. And beyond what she describes every bit the "absolute freedom" that Aira has afforded her over the previous six months, she wasn't expecting for it to restore one aspect of making her style through the globe: but enjoying a walk, with no item purpose or destination.

When she met Kanuganti last fall on the National Mall in Washington to endeavour Aira, the agent she connected with guided her from a subway entrance to one of the Smithsonian museums. And instead of just receiving directions, she asked what the agent could encounter: orange and red leaves falling from the trees. A trash tin can to her left. A person walking toward her with a stroller and a baby dressed in pinkish.

"For the very first time, in I don't know how long, I felt like I was talking a walk in the city that I live in and dear," Candice said. "It was a walk. Not just the task of getting safely from bespeak A to point B. I wanted to scream with happiness."

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/consumer-electronics-reviews-ratings-comparisons/15499/augmented-ability-assistive-tech-gets-smart

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