App turns Android tabs into math tools for the visually impaired (video)

Two high school students are taking part in a bit of an experiment at Vanderbilt University. The college's Medical and Electromechanical Design Laboratory (MED Lab) is working on an Android app that turns tablets into a teaching aid for the visually impaired. Areas of math that rely heavily on visual elements, such as algebra and calculus, prove problematic for students with poor eyesight. A common solution involves pipe cleaners, a cork board and push pins, to recreate graphs, but the method is quite slow. The MED Lab is looking to haptic feedback as a way to help the visually impaired identify lines, graph points and other data that is normally represented visually. For more details about the project check out the video after the break.

Continue reading App turns Android tabs into math tools for the visually impaired (video)

Google aids accessibility with ChromeVox reader, better YouTube captions and more

Engineers from Google have commandeered a booth at this year's CSUN accessibility conference and they're keen to talk up their latest efforts. For the visually impaired, there's now a beta version of a Chrome screen reader called ChromeVox (demo'd after the break), plus improved shortcuts and screen reader support in Google Docs, Sites and Calendar. Meanwhile, YouTube boasts expanded caption support for the hard of hearing, with automatic captions enabled for 135 million video clips -- a healthy tripling of last year's total. Check the source link for full details or, if you're anywhere near San Diego, go and hassle those engineers the old-fashioned way.

Continue reading Google aids accessibility with ChromeVox reader, better YouTube captions and more

BrailleTouch brings 'eyes-free' texting to the visually impaired

Georgia Tech is developing a mobile app to help the visually impaired type on their phones. Called BrailleTouch, the open-source app features a six-button set-up — with three buttons on either side of the screen — and the device is held with the screen facing away from you. Written Braille characters use a six-dot code for the English alphabet, with different combinations of dots corresponding to each of the 26 letters (and various symbols). BrailleTouch will read out the letters as you type, and early research shows that users have been able to type at speeds of up to 32 words per minute while maintaining 92 percent accuracy. In addition to aiding the visually impaired, the team behind BrailleTouch is also looking at turning the...

Continue reading…

ColorNote Notepad App

Color Note is a notepad app which give you a better note editing experience.

Color Note is a simple notepad app. It give you a quick and simple notepad editing experience when you write notes, memo, email, message, shopping list and todo list. Color Note makes taking a note easier than any other notepad and memo apps.

source:https://market.android.com/details?id=com.socialnmobile.dictapps.notepad.color.note&feature=top-free

New wheelchair designed to encourage seated movement

New wheelchair designed to encourage seated movement:

If you sit behind a desk in an office all day then you'll be all too aware of the effects from not changing your position regularly. Wheelchair users spend the majority of their day seated, with long periods in the same position, resulting in severe pain, deformities, and even bedsores. Roger Hochstrasser, founder of r going, plans to improve the situation with a new adjustable wheelchair.

Hochstrasser has teamed up with Swiss research group Empa, and the pair have developed an ergonomic seat for electric wheelchairs which helps users move around frequently. The wheelchair, which is undergoing testing, consists of ribs and movable joints inside an articulated backrest that match the contours of a user's body. The unique backrest, powered...

Continue reading…

The iPen May Be The iPad Stylus You’ve Been Looking For

Using a stylus with your iPad to write or draw can be hit or miss. You may get more precision with your stylus than with your finger, but it still doesn’t compare to an actual pen-on-paper experience. Many note-taking and drawing apps lack wrist support, meaning you need to have your hand hover over your iPad while drawing or writing. The apps that do have wrist support are still buggy sometimes and allow unwanted input from your wrist. If you’re still searching for a stylus that suits your needs, the Cregle iPen may be just what you’re looking for.

“iPen is the first active digitizer stylus that allows you to write with precision directly on the iPad. Unlike the passive digitizer used in the typical iPad stylus, iPen writes like a real pen with accurate positioning and palm rejection features that passive products simply cannot achieve.

With the Cregle iPen’s active digitizer, the attached receiver picks up the iPen’s signal and its precise position as it hovers above the screen (whereas a passive stylus can be located only when the user touches the screen). This crucial advantage allows iPen to actively transmit 60 samples per second to pinpoint the pen’s exact location.”

Every iPen comes with an external receiver that plugs into the iPad’s charge/sync port. The receiver then gathers ultrasonic and infrared information from the iPen to pinpoint it’s location on the iPad. The iPen currently supports a handful of great note-taking apps, such as NotesPlus and GhostWriter Notes, and is aiming to be compatible with many more apps by February.

Cregle Inc. has already surpassed their $35,000 goal by receiving over $162,000 in pledges. Head over to Kickstarter to make a pledge if you’re interested as iPens are expected to ship this month.

• Notes Plus - Handwriting, Note Taking, Shape Drawing, and Sound Recording
• Ghostwriter Notes - Handwriting - Sophisticated notes taking & PDF annotation!

The iPen May Be The iPad Stylus You’ve Been Looking For is a story by AppAdvice.com

Plantronics Clarity Fortissimo speakerphone hands-on (video)

Music aficionados will recognize the term "fortissimo." It's used to signify belting out the tunes as loud as humanly possible, which is exactly what Clarity is hoping to achieve with its speakerphone that uses the name. The Clarity Fortissimo is geared toward those who are mobility-challenged, offering a massively loud 95dB speaker, huge buttons, voice activation, Bluetooth and DECT connectivity, and a large touchscreen display. The Fortissimo offers Plantronics' Vocalyst technology, which has the ability to push emails, messages and even social network updates. It also has a dedicated button that automatically dials Clarity's support center, where a rep can then program the phone remotely for you. Expect to see the Fortissimo available this spring -- we were quoted April / May -- and will retail for $500. We have images and video after the break.

Gallery: Plantronics Clarity Fortissimo hands-on

Continue reading Plantronics Clarity Fortissimo speakerphone hands-on (video)