Paralyzed woman uses bionic suit to complete London Marathon

A paralyzed British woman made history on Tuesday, when she became the first person to ever complete a marathon while wearing a bionic suit. Claire Lomas, 32, finished the 26.2-mile race 16 days after it began, with the help of the ReWalk exoskeleton developed by Amit Goffer.
Lomas was left paralyzed from the chest down following a 2007 horse riding accident that broke her neck, back, and ribs. In the five years since her accident, she's gone skydiving, learned to monoski, and has returned to horse riding. In January, she received a £43,000 ($69,400) ReWalk suit on loan and set her sights on last month's marathon, in the hopes of raising money for Spinal Research — a charity that funds research on paralysis caused by back and neck...
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AppleVis Provides Resources for Blind Apple Users

AppleVis is a website by and for blind and vision-impaired users of Apple devices, primarily iOS device users but including some resources for Mac OS X users. The focus is on VoiceOver users but there are some resources for other blind users who use zooming to access devices too.

A community-powered website for blind and vision-impaired users of Apple devices.

• Seek and share information on the accessibility of apps developed for the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and the Mac.
• Read and share guides, tutorials and tips to help VoiceOver users get the most from their Apple devices.

AppleVis is a site which provides many resources, including:

• Directories of iOS and Mac applications with community-provided descriptions and thorough VoiceOver compatibility information for each program. Applications recommended as highly usable by blind users are also collected together in “Recommended App” lists.
• A forum for discussing issues related to accessibility for Apple users.
• AppleVis blog which highlights news of special interest and editor opinions.
• Podcasts with walk-through style tutorials and reviews.
• Guides section offers text tutorials
• Reviews of accessibilities

Lots of stuff! Most is fairly high quality too, the moderators must work overtime there. This site is highly recommended for those interested in resources for vision-impaired Apple users.

Website: AppleVis

- Ricky Buchanan
Related posts:

1. VoiceOver For Sighted Users
2. Lioncourt.com
3. GarageBand Now Accessible For Blind Users

How to use your Mac without a mouse

Becoming a mouse-avoiding keyboard junkie is a learnable skill; it requires practice and memorization—especially muscle memory. Everyone knows a few keyboard shortcuts (like Command-P for print, or Command-Q for quit). Mastering more, along with other efficient ways to control your Mac without reaching for the mouse, will help you get your work done faster, leaving more time for Angry Birds.

This MacWorld article is aimed at able-bodied people who prefer to use the keyboard mostly, instead of the mouse, because it’s quicker … but of course this means it applies well to keyboard-only users and to switch users and voice users who find keyboard commands easier than mouse movement commands.

Website: How to use your Mac without a mouse

- Ricky Buchanan
Related posts:

1. Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.0 Announced
2. Speech-to-Text: Dictation software for Mac OS X
3. Dictate News: Bluetooth, Mouse Control, and Discounts

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This article was originally published at How to use your Mac without a mouse and is copyright (C) Ricky Buchanan 2012. May be forwarded but do not republish without permission.

Google puts a blind man behind the wheel of its self-driving car (video)

Sometimes it feels all too easy to succumb to cynicism when looking at the cutthroat competition in the tech world, but a new video from Google that demonstrates its self-driving car is more than enough to lead one's heart back to the optimism inherent in human technology. In the video, Google employees pick up Steve Mahan, a man who's lost 95 percent of his vision, and put him behind the wheel — and from the moment the car starts up to a gentle robotic voice that announces "auto driving," it's clear that this ride is going to be unlike any other you've seen. Steve explains how "you lose your timing in life, everything takes you much longer" — "there are some places that you cannot go, there are some things that you really cannot...
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Robot uses AI and camera tracking to rehabilitate stroke victims

Stroke patients don't always keep up with their rehabilitation exercises once they leave the hospital, so a team at the University of Toronto's Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering has come up with a solution — an intelligent robot that makes the process more fun. Associate professor Alex Mihailidis and his team developed a robot that helps patients with their exercises. It's also equipped with artificial intelligence and cameras so that it can track their progress and adapt accordingly. Exercises will change based on past performances or how tired the patient is, and the robot uses rehabilitation-related games to make things more enjoyable. It can even record sessions so that attendants can review progress remotely....
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Google Docs spell checker now features adaptive 'Did you mean...' suggestions

We're regularly impressed by the accuracy of Google's "Did you mean..." functionality, so it's good news that the company has decided to integrate it into Google Docs' spell checker. It'll now give you suggestions based on context — examples given are the ability to correctly interpret "Icland is an icland" as "Iceland is an island," and correcting sentences like "Let's meat for coffee." It also checks words against content from the web, finally saving you from having to enter terms like "Skrillex" into traditional spell checkers. We tested these features out and found them to work relatively reliably, though not always consistently — typing in "your a idiot," for example, caught the first grammar mistake but not the second. Still,...
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Even cerebral palsy can't stop this dedicated video creator

Christopher Hill isn't your typical video producer. The youngster whipped up the clip after the break controlling his array of Macs almost entirely with a single switch. Chris has cerebral palsy, a severe motor function impairment that makes it all but impossible for him to interact with a computer through a traditional keyboard and mouse. Instead, a button is mounted behind his head on his wheel chair, which connects to a Discover Switch. That blue and green USB peripheral, which looks quite a bit like the Staple's Easy Button, allows him to manipulate anything on the screen with nothing more than the back of his head. The one thing Chris left to someone else in the clip below is the subtitles. While he could actually type them himself, it would have taken a very long time, so he graciously accepted some help from his father. Click on through for a nice heart-warming tale about the power of modern technology.
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