{"id":2481,"date":"2009-11-14T13:17:54","date_gmt":"2009-11-14T13:17:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=2481"},"modified":"2009-11-14T13:17:54","modified_gmt":"2009-11-14T13:17:54","slug":"the_titans_the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=2481","title":{"rendered":"The Titans &#038; The Start-Ups"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Assitive technology is sometimes developed in corporate R&amp;D labs and then marketed to the general public. The <a href=\"http:\/\/news.cnet.com\/8301-1023_3-10394236-93.html\">Intel Reader<\/a>, a new device that scans printed text and converts it into speech for users with visual impairments, is a good example. Intel probably spent a considerable amount of time and money developing this device, but a list price of $1,500 is still out of reach for a lot of people. <\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s why it&#8217;s encouraging to see development of homebrew, low-cost assistive technology like the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eyewriter.org\/\">EyeWriter<\/a>. The EyeWriter uses off-the-shelf parts and open-source software to enable artists with physical disabilities to draw and sketch using only eye movement. Here&#8217;s a video showing the Eyewriter being used by Tony Quan, a graffiti artist with ALS:<\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-video\"><object height=\"344\" width=\"425\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/84H-xLrLvvk&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><\/object><\/div>\n<p>It would be great to see big corporations like Intel supporting some of these community efforts to produce affordable assistive technology that can dramatically improve lives. As I&#8217;ve said before, proprietary devices will always be needed, but I think the market is big enough to accommodate options at both the high and low end. <\/p>\n<p>Thanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boingboing.net\/2009\/11\/13\/the-eyewriter.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+boingboing%2FiBag+%28Boing+Boing%29\">BoingBoing<\/a> for the tip on the EyeWriter.<\/p>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.zemanta.com\/pixy.gif?w=695\" \/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Assitive technology is sometimes developed in corporate R&amp;D labs and then marketed to the general public. The Intel Reader, a new device that scans printed text and converts it into speech for users with visual impairments, is a good example. Intel probably spent a considerable amount of time and money developing this device, but a <a href='https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=2481' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-1-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Iwau-E1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}