WEBVTT - Assistive Technology 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:08.960 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:18.200 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello, everybody, 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:20.639 welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Pollette, and 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:23.080 I'm an editor here at how stuff works dot Com. 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:25.560 Sitting across the table from me as usual as senior 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:29.920 writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey there, Crispy. I don't know where 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:31.480 you've got that from, but you can put it right back. 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:34.519 Your first name is Chris, your last name begins with 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:38.599 a P. CHRISP Crispy, and you shall be known as 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:43.080 Crispy for evermore amongst all the tech stuff listeners show. 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:49.040 I degree great. Actually, we're actually going to be a 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:52.880 little bit more somber than usual, serious stuff to talk 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:58.160 talk about. Um and um yeah. I mean we've had 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:00.560 a couple of people right in and ask us about 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:09.280 technology for people who have you know, yeah, yeah, we're 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:12.760 talking about a system of technology. Yes, and it's specifically 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:16.759 technology that assists people who otherwise would find it difficult 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:20.840 to lead. Uh. Well, I hesitate to say a normal life, 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:22.959 but what we would normally what we would consider a 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:26.520 normal life. I suppose basically helps them accomplished tasks that 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:31.120 they cannot do normally exactly right. So this has a 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:35.000 very wide range, um, because there are lots of different 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:37.399 things that you could need assistance with, and there are 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:39.360 a lot of things that technology can do to help you. 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:42.080 So um, this is probably really just kind of a 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:46.160 general overview because there's no way we could cover everything 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:48.840 in a normal podcast. It would take hours and hours 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:51.240 to talk about some of the incredible innovations that are 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:53.360 out there that can help people. And some of them 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:57.080 are very basic. Some of them aren't necessarily the super 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:02.560 high tech solution, but they're very clever and they are effective, 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:05.360 so we should talk about them. Some of them actually 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:09.240 aren't even brand new. Um. One of the first ones 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:11.840 I thought of as I started writing down ideas is 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:15.320 the hearing aid. That's a good example because I mean, 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:18.320 of course they haven't always been like they are now, 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:21.280 but uh, you know, the pieces, the earpieces that people 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:25.520 wear now are almost indistinguishable. I mean, they're very very 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:28.000 difficult to tell that someone is even wearing a hearing aid, 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:30.720 and they're very very efficient. But inside that tiny little 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:33.160 package you've got, you've got to have a number of 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:36.960 things in there, including a microphone, a speaker, and an 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:41.799 amplifier and you know, the battery and it and it 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:45.960 has made people's lives very very easy people who have 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:50.880 difficulty hearing. Basically UM transferring those sounds to the the 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:54.000 little hairs in your ear and UM. Through that you 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:57.520 can you can hear, not completely normally, but that is 0:02:57.639 --> 0:02:59.240 you know, I wasn't even thinking of that as an 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:01.720 assistant technology, but that's been around for you know, for 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:04.040 decades now. A similar one that's been around for a 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.760 few decades is the teletypewriter. Oh yeah, So this is 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:10.440 something that people who have other people who might have, 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:14.200 you know, a hearing impairment would use, uh in order 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:18.239 to communicate over phone lines. Now, before we had cell 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:20.960 phones where you could text like crazy and all that 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:24.240 that kind of mess if you wanted, if you were 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:26.560 if you were someone who had a really serious hearing impairment, 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:29.919 if you were deaf or just had a very poor hearing, um, 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.480 there weren't too many options that you had in order 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:35.240 to communicate over the phone. One of the few ones 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:40.040 was the teletypewriter. And the teletypewriter it looks like it 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:43.280 looks kind of like a typewriter and uh that connects 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:47.520 to a phone. It actually transmits information over phone lines. Um. 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:50.800 And in order to really communicate with one, you essentially 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:53.480 needed to have one on both ends of the line, 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:58.240 or you needed to have an operator between uh, the 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.160 person who was calling normally and the person who was 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:05.200 on the teletypewriter, because you couldn't just you know, receive 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:09.600 voice over the phone line and have the teletypewriter transmit 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:13.120 that into into text. It didn't work that way right, right, 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.599 And speaking from personal experience, UM, if you receive a 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:20.560 call from from an operator uh working with someone using 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:24.000 a teletypewriter, it's it's kind of nerve wracking because you 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:26.240 want to be respectful to the person on the other end, 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:29.600 but you may not necessarily necessarily know how that works. 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:33.480 So it's kind of difficult because they're transcribing everything you're saying, 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:36.160 and when you basically say, hey, well I have a question, 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.480 they're typing that like no, no, I'm asking you, the operator, 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:41.240 can you help me with this because I don't know 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:43.240 what you know, right, And if you get a smart 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:45.400 test for an operator, they're saying things like they're totally 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:49.000 saying that you're ugly yeah, I haven't had that problem. Yeah, 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:53.320 well we can talk about my previous job experience in 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:56.919 a different podcasts. So yeah, the teletypewriter, that was another 0:04:56.960 --> 0:04:59.560 example of technology that's been around for a while where 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:03.880 was just a clever use of tech to allow people 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.599 to have more options when they're communicating. I mean, it's 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:12.000 it's a simple idea, but it was definitely a revolutionary 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:16.599 thing in the lives of many millions of people. But 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:20.479 that's just the tip of the iceberg. I was gonna 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.040 site another every night every day when before we got 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:27.719 into the super duper high tech closed captioning good, which 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:30.479 actually is is very similar in some ways to the 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:34.600 teletypewriter in the operator because, um, when you have a 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:39.240 live show going on, um you have somebody listening to 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:42.120 what's going on during the show and you know, trying 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:44.839 to transcribe it as they are speaking, which can be 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:48.479 I imagine amazingly difficult, especially judging when you see the 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:51.359 typos that pop up on the screen, and I'm you know, 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:53.599 I I smirk it those, I admit, but I think 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:55.960 I wouldn't have done any better. As a matter of fact, 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:58.360 I probably would have been far far worse. So I 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:03.000 appreciate their you'll see some interesting homonyms throwing and there 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:05.520 are things like that. But yeah, you know, these these 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:09.680 are even when they're using special keyboards that have macros 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:12.800 or or certain common words already programmed into them, so 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:14.080 that way all you have to do is hit one 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:17.240 key stroke too to do an entire word. Even when 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:19.200 you're doing that, you're still talking about having to type 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:23.360 an incredible rate. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But my favorite when 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:25.480 you have the clothes captioning turned on is when they 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:28.880 have the shows that have already been captioned, um, and 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:30.919 there's music and it says music and it has that 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:33.640 little note because I just thought it's kind of nice 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:36.880 they bother to include that. M yep, yeah, you get 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:43.200 the little anyway. Sorry, well, here here's some other we 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:46.560 can go some other basic technology things like they're very 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:49.320 various special keyboards that are out for people who have 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:53.240 other problems, Like there are keyboards that have oversized keys, 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:57.080 and they're they're maybe extra sensitive, so people who have trouble, 0:06:57.480 --> 0:06:59.920 you know, maybe someone who couldn't push down on an 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:02.799 normal key the way that that you and I could 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:05.320 could be able to type without any problem using one 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:07.800 of these. They're also key keyboards that are especially made 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:10.760 for people who have only the use of one hand. Um. 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.440 So there are a lot of those on the market 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:17.000 as well, and I mean they all are designed for 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:22.720 very specific kinds of of of disabilities in mind. So 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:26.840 that's also a a pretty common thing that you can 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:30.440 find out in the world of tech. Yeah. UM. Text 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:34.760 to speech software also very important. Yeah, because people who 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:38.560 wouldn't otherwise be able to type. Um. Would you know 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.120 that would be speech to text. Well, that's text to 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:44.360 speech would be the other way around, that's true, Okay, 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:47.840 speech to text. Well, we'll go in both directions. Speech 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:51.640 to text, um would be very useful for someone who 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:54.280 you know, may not be able to type necessarily, but 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.040 they could speak into a microphone and have the computer 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:02.720 transcribe and email someone um or um. You know, maybe 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:05.200 even print out a letter, you know, for someone else 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:07.720 to mail for them. Um. And then you have your 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:10.680 text to speech, which I mean, hey, the Amazon Kindle 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:16.160 has got it. Yeah, it's not necessarily enabled for every title, No, 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.360 that your Kindle could read to you if you were 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:21.920 not able to work the Kindle with your hands, right, 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:27.520 if if the publisher enables that particular UM function, I'm 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:31.600 just gonna take a moment here. Amazon. UM, I don't 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:34.839 really blame you. It's not your fault. Amazon. You're working 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:38.520 with lots and lots of publishers, and these publishers are 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:43.080 afraid of technology because they're uh, their industry is based 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:47.160 off a very old, venerable business model that has served 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:51.240 them well for decades. So it's very scary to move 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:55.760 into a new format where uh you have this electronic 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:58.840 version of what you used to print out and hard copy. 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:02.240 That electronic version it so ephemeral, and it could be 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:04.760 spread around and there's you know, you think about how 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:07.160 much money you could lose if what if one person 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:09.080 gets hold of that book and then just spreads copies 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:15.199 around for free. However, I don't think you can really 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:17.079 uh it publishers. I don't think you would like to 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:20.080 stand on when you say that that the the text 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:25.000 to speech feature and endangers the sales of audio books, 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:28.520 because an audio book is a completely different animal from 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:33.160 a book read using text to speech. There's no real inflection, 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:37.080 and text to speech there's no characterization. Uh. It's really 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:40.720 a useful tool for people who have visual impairments. It 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:42.960 is not something that you would want to listen to 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.240 just for entertainment purposes. If you want that, you would 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:48.600 obviously go out and buy the audio book version. I 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.400 don't think anyone would think, oh, well now I can, 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:54.760 I'll just buy the text copy because that text of 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:57.280 speech voice. Let me tell you, that's so much better 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:00.240 than hearing the novelist read it in his own voice 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:05.360 or her own voice. So publishers, um, come on enable 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:07.959 that function on more titles. Seriously, I just I think 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:10.920 it's the right thing to do. That's Jonathan's opinion. Chris 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:15.400 is just gonna sit back and let me rant your editorialize. 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:20.760 I I feel very passionately about this. So but yes, 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:23.920 those are very important features. I was also going to mention, um, 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:26.320 you know you might you might say, well, this is 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:30.960 a technology assistant. Technology is a very important field. But 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:35.600 you know, you wonder why people, uh honestly, why some 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:40.000 companies spend so much time and effort in in researching 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:42.800 this stuff, because when you get down to it, like 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:46.559 if you're going to be cold blooded and talk about capitalism, um, 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:50.199 the market is, it's it's a niche market. But then 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:53.240 you think about what would we lose if we didn't 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:59.120 invest in assistive technology and the human element, like the 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:02.760 the contributions that that people can make when with this 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:06.400 assistant technology are amazing. And there's one example that just 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:10.920 is forefront of my mind. It's obviously Dr Stephen Hawking. 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:15.640 Now Doctor Hawking of course a brilliant mind, absolutely brilliant, 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:21.080 and back when he started to to require technology in 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:25.240 order to communicate after surgeries and disease um, originally he 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:28.160 had a device that all allowed him to do was 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:30.880 communicate one letter at a time. He had to build 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:34.800 sentences one letter at a time. It took forever. And 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:37.720 he points out now that with the technology has that 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:39.240 you know, if if he had to rely on the 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:42.559 old technology, he probably wouldn't have written several of the 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:44.679 books that he's written, or been able to have the 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:48.480 lectures that he's given at various universities, and the world 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:52.160 would be a poorer place without those contributions. I mean, 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:56.479 that's just the way it boils down. So this technology 0:11:56.559 --> 0:12:00.520 is very important because a lot of these people have attributions. 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:03.680 I can't even begin to imagine sure, and without it 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:06.240 we would never see it. So that's my other editorial. 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:11.800 Uh boy, we should have let Jonathan get onto this podcast. 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:17.120 Should we all right, let's get back to some more technology. Okay, Okay, well, um, 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:20.200 you know, and and that's the other thing too, is that, um, 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:22.600 some of this some of the research and development that 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:28.559 goes into creating assisted of technologies for differently able to people, UM, 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:31.839 sort of bleeds over into real life into other things 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:35.800 that um, you know, everyone else can use too. I'm 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:37.960 thinking back to our our podcast that we did on 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:43.920 Ray Kurtzwile and the reader that he created, which has 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:48.559 basically made its way over into the music industry. Sure, Um, 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:50.960 you know Stevie Wonder being one of the very first 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.000 people even lay his hands on one, which is you know, 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:57.400 made them fast friends. I think that's pretty cool. Yeah. 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:00.280 And there's other technology that has been used in vious 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:04.360 UM devices that have found its way into two completely 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:07.160 different inventions. For example, Dean came and we did a 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:09.800 whole podcast on Dean came, and we mentioned his I 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:15.719 bought the the very advanced electric wheelchair that he developed. Now, 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:19.320 this wheelchair has got some really cool features on it, 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:22.320 including the ability to climb stairs. It also has the 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:26.080 ability to raise up on two wheels, so it suddenly 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:28.600 allows the the person sitting in the chair to be 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:32.680 at about eye level instead of at waist level, which 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:35.320 for you know, someone who's standing up, which is fantastic. 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:38.600 Was actually listening to a testimonial from someone using one 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:40.959 of these chairs, and she said, I went to a 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:43.760 hotel to make a reservation and I went up on 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:45.600 two wheels, and I can you know, no one has 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:48.240 to lean over the desk or come around the desk 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:50.679 in order to talk to me, because now I'm suddenly 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:53.760 standing I'm over the desk with this feature. Now that 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:57.560 technology has found its way into other devices like the segue, 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:01.240 the the the gyre of scopes that allow you to 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.440 move the segway by leaning forward or leaning backward. That's 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:06.559 also in this wheelchair, so people who are in the 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:09.200 wheelchair can when they're up on the two wheels, they 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:12.160 can manipulate the wheelchair by leaning forward and leaning backwards. 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:14.440 I would be willing to bet that some of that 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:18.439 technology is also in the center, which may never make 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:22.960 it to market, but it looks super cool. Hint. Yeah, um, 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:24.920 but yeah, I mean. And while we're on the subject, 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:27.240 with Dean came in it, we have to talk about 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:31.000 the Luke arm. Okay, because now This is named after 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:34.720 Luke Skywalker from a little movie. I didn't know that 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:37.160 it is. You didn't know that. Yeah, it's named after 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:40.480 Luke Skywalker. It's the Luke Arms, the robotic arm. And 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:43.760 of course Luke spoiler alert gets his hand cut off 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:47.440 an Empire, strikes back and then gets a an electronic 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:50.240 one attached at the very end. Um, so that's a 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:53.440 lot like his dear old dad, Darth Vader other spoiler alert, 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:56.680 And so the Luke Arm is. What happened was Dean 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:58.440 the way Dean came and talks about He says that 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:00.960 someone from the Department of Defensive, very high level man 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:03.880 came up to him and said, um, we have all 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:07.520 these these soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, many 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:11.080 of whom have lost an arm. And the problem is 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:14.400 that the technology for replacing a lost arm hasn't really 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:18.320 advanced since the you know, the seventeen hundreds. So he says, 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:20.680 the way he describes it, says, it's essentially a stick 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:22.960 with a hook at the end, and they want something 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:26.000 more advanced. They wanted something that was so advanced that 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:28.760 you would be able to lift a grape or raisin 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:32.360 off a table, be able to tell the difference without 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:34.600 looking at it, and be able to lift it to 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.600 your mouth and eat it without crushing it. So there 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.280 were all these different UH parameters that came and had 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:43.880 to put in the mind. And he first said, you're crazy. 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:46.880 There's no technology that exists that would allow us to 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:49.320 do this, especially on a level where the arm would 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:51.640 be light enough for a human being to comfortably be 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:55.760 able to use it. But came and went around, talked 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:58.080 to some neurologists, He talked to some of the soldiers 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:01.160 who came back. Was convinced that this was a worthy cause. 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:04.360 He formed formulated a team, and after about a year 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:08.240 of development, they had a nine pound arm that could 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:10.920 do many of the things that they had hoped it 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:14.040 could do. Now granted, right now, the arm is mainly 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:18.840 controlled through a series of sensors that you actually attached 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:21.640 to your shoes, so you use you you know, you 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:24.000 might lean forward to make the arm go up, and 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:26.200 you might lean to the right to make the wrist 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:28.800 rotate a certain way. It's got fourteen points of articulation. 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:32.720 There's some other sensors that attached to the you know, 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:34.760 any remnant of an arm that the person might have 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:37.960 or their shoulder that kind of thing, um, and they 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:40.600 hope eventually to get to a sort of a neural 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:44.640 muscular control system where you would actually have the controls 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:47.280 implanted into the person's body and they would be able 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:49.240 to control it with their mind and so you don't 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:51.080 have to use any motor controls at all to to 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:55.520 adjust it. There's some amazing videos online. I highly recommend 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:58.800 you check them out because, um, this is the sort 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:02.880 of technology that I find really inspiring. Um. I mean, 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:05.840 these are very very smart people who see the need 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:10.120 to solve a specific problem and they put everything they've 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:16.080 got into it. So it's pretty it's pretty cool stuff. Yeah. Uh, 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:18.480 let's see, I've got a lot of other like like 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:21.760 not you know, important things, maybe not as impressive as 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:26.239 the Luke arm or the iBOT, but like screen readers. Now, 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:29.280 this is technology that's again for people who are visually impaired. 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:33.520 A screen reader is essentially an an application that will 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:38.600 uh analyze the contents on a screen and then translated 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:42.800 in some way to convey that to the person sitting 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:45.680 at the keyboard. Now that might be through a um, 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:49.800 a text to speech uh program. So it may be 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.760 that the computer talks to the person saying at the keyboard, 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:56.960 or they they may have a brail keyboard. Rail keyboards 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:02.119 are these these pads that have a section where little 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:06.160 pins can pop up and they essentially spell out words 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:09.240 and brail. So the visually impaired person would put his 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.680 or her fingers over the this section and feel the 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:16.840 pins as they come up, and they use piezo electric effects, so, um, 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:19.240 you put a little electricity through and it pops the 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:21.960 pin right up and they can read what's on the 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:25.760 screen because it's been translated from whatever the text is 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:29.359 into brail and then that is translated through the pins. 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:31.680 It's pretty cool stuff. Actually, it's really cool. I've seen 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:35.960 one working and it's I'm always astounded at how fast 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:39.640 they move and how fat quickly people can read because 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:41.600 it's just so foreign to me to be able to 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:44.240 read through your sense of touch, and I mean, that's 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:48.159 just it's amazing to to to see. Yeah, um, you know, 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:51.000 there are a lot of standards out there to The 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:57.439 Worldwide Web Consortium actually has standards for basically for screen 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:01.520 readers to be able to read web pages. Um, you know, 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:04.760 so it is possible that there, you know, that everyone 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:07.280 can create web pages that other people can read as 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:11.520 long as they conform to those standards, and the manufacturers 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:14.760 of operating systems to also have a lot of assistive 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:17.720 technology built right into the to the operating system. You 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:21.479 can turn on features such as high contrast and um, 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:24.800 you know, alter the the size of letters on the 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:27.600 screen to make them easier for people who are have 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:30.800 difficulty seeing to read the screen a little better. Oh yeah, 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:34.960 there's some that also will translate any audio cues into 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:37.639 visual cues, so it might make the screen flash to 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:40.480 let you know an alert has come through when normally, 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:43.399 you know, you might just hear a chime. Um. So 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:47.240 I mean it's it's little things like that that seem 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:50.080 very simple, but they do make a big difference. Um. 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:52.920 You know, thinking on it, you're like, well, yeah, that 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:55.359 makes perfect sense, but someone had to come up with that. 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:59.240 It's it's when you're when you're designing something for a 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:01.000 wide audience, it's there are a lot of things that 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:03.760 you may not take into consideration. Um. It's the same 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:06.080 problem that people that I see with people who developed 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:09.680 really really cool websites. They're developing really cool websites for 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:12.920 the latest version of whatever browsers they want to support. 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:17.600 But as you and I know, not everyone's using the 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:21.359 latest browser. In fact, a relatively small number of people 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:23.520 are using the latest browser. Most people are are at 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:27.240 least a generation, if not two generations behind, and so 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:29.840 when they go to visit the super cool website, their 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:33.360 browser isn't able to display it the way it's meant 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:35.600 to be displayed, and so it becomes a jumbled mess. 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:38.080 So it's another one of those things where and when 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:41.600 you're designing something now it might pay off to really 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:46.280 take these sort of things into consideration. UM. I don't 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:48.320 know if you saw this. It was a pretty recent 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:52.040 news story. Did you hear about the the car developed 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:54.639 by the Virginia Tech College of Engineering that allowed a 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:58.680 blind man to drive? No? I didn't. Yeah, Yeah, it 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:02.080 was interesting. It's a little doomed uggy style vehicle and 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:04.840 I watched a video on it and they allowed this. Uh. 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:09.399 One of the members of the teams a blind man 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:11.880 who was behind the wheel of the car. Another student 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:15.600 set next to him, and UM, it uses a whole 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:19.720 bunch of different technologies to allow the blind person to drive. 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:24.920 UM has laser range finders, it's got voice command software, um. 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:28.000 And it's got a feedback system. It tells the driver 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:30.879 which way to turn, so it starts to detect something 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:33.080 that you might collide with us. You might want to 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:36.520 turn left now so that the the driver doesn't collide 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:38.359 with anything on the road. Now, granted, this is not 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:42.080 something necessarily that we're going to see implemented on the 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:47.040 streets any time in the foreseeable future. Not to use 0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:51.960 a horrible pun, but the you know, it's just it's 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:55.640 an interesting use of technology. And now if you could 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:59.120 fine tune it to a point where the car could 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:03.480 definitely detect everything, then maybe, But I just don't I 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:06.080 don't think that's possible really, although it could be a 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:09.160 very good step in the direction of full full automation. 0:22:09.920 --> 0:22:12.760 That's true, However, um, I think the biggest problem in 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:15.040 this case would be you need everybody to adopt that 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:18.440 technology at the same time to prevent because I think 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:20.760 the biggest hazard in that case would be other drivers 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:23.680 because it's impossible to predict what they're doing right well. 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:25.680 And and when you think about your car would become 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:28.360 the ultimate backseat driver, yeah, because it would say things 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:30.800 like this jerk is cutting you off. Flip them off. 0:22:30.880 --> 0:22:33.960 And cut to the left. I mean that's just you know, 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:36.320 that's all right. I mean that's the way I would 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:40.119