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Japan's top oil company is building an 'Aliens' power loader
This is turning out to be an awesome week for powered exoskeletons. First, America's MegaBot clears half of its initial $500,000 Kickstarter goal ahead of next year's fight against Japan's Kuratas in a little under 24 hours. Now, Mitsui, Japan's number one oil and ore mining outfit, has announced that it plans to develop real life versions of Ripley's power loader.
Fleksy is an alternate text input tool for the visually impaired
Fleksy is an interesting take on alternate text input for the iPhone. Designed for those whose eyesight is bad or nonexistent, Fleksy records the taps on the screen and makes a guess based on your patterns. It then says the word, enabling you to quickly construct sentences without even looking at the screen. Does it work? Absolutely it does, and as proof I found it was far more accurate when I didn't look at the screen than when I tried to type quickly while looking at the "keys." Fleksy is simple enough, with a text area up top and modified keyboard below. As you type, it guesses what you're trying to type. When you go to the next word by swiping right, Fleksy reads the word it guessed, allowing you to delete it (swipe left to delete), ask for another suggestion (swipe down), or continue by typing again. What's incredible is the speed and accuracy of the app while not looking at the screen. If you're familiar with the basic QWERTY layout on an iPhone's screen, you can tappity-tap on the screen, pretending you're seeing the keys, when Fleksy is actually making several educated guesses about what you're wanting to write. Fleksy is free to test, and I highly recommend you do so to understand what's going on. My video below is but a tiny sample of how good Fleksy is at guessing your keystrokes. To unlock the ability to use this text outside of the app, it'll cost you $9.99. If you are visually impaired, it's a decent bargain, even though Apple continues to make iOS more accessible.
EyeRing finger-mounted connected cam captures signs and dollar bills, identifies them with OCR (hands-on)
Ready to swap that diamond for a finger-mounted camera with a built-in trigger and Bluetooth connectivity? If it could help identify otherwise indistinguishable objects, you might just consider it. The MIT Media Lab's EyeRing project was designed with an assistive focus in mind, helping visually disabled persons read signs or identify currency, for example, while also serving to assist children during the tedious process of learning to read. Instead of hunting for a grownup to translate text into speech, a young student could direct EyeRing at words on a page, hit the shutter release, and receive a verbal response from a Bluetooth-connected device, such as a smartphone or tablet. EyeRing could be useful for other individuals as well, serving as an ever-ready imaging device that enables you to capture pictures or documents with ease, transmitting them automatically to a smartphone, then on to a media sharing site or a server. We peeked at EyeRing during our visit to the MIT Media Lab this week, and while the device is buggy at best in its current state, we can definitely see how it could fit into the lives of people unable to read posted signs, text on a page or the monetary value of a currency note. We had an opportunity to see several iterations of the device, which has come quite a long way in recent months, as you'll notice in the gallery below. The demo, which like many at the Lab includes a Samsung Epic 4G, transmits images from the ring to the smartphone, where text is highlighted and read aloud using a custom app. Snapping the text "ring," it took a dozen or so attempts before the rig correctly read the word aloud, but considering that we've seen much more accurate OCR implementations, it's reasonable to expect a more advanced version of the software to make its way out once the hardware is a bit more polished -- at this stage, EyeRing is more about the device itself, which had some issues of its own maintaining a link to the phone. You can get a feel for how the whole package works in the video after the break, which required quite a few takes before we were able to capture an accurate reading.
Video relay calling breakthrough uses FaceTime to help the deaf
In the past, the only way for the hearing impaired to communicate was either in person or by way of the TTY (teletypewriter); the TTY is a device that's about as large as a laptop computer, and it allows the hard of hearing to type on a QWERTY keyboard and have the communication transferred. However, iZ breaks that barrier; it will allow the deaf to pull an iPhone 4 out of their pocket and effectively communicate. Now, another technical impediment will be on its way out. This is wonderful news. At first, the technology will only be available through Wi-Fi and the iPhone 4, but it's a safe bet to say that it will eventually filter down to other devices and be able to use cellular service. For now, though, it's quite a start. [via AppleInsider]
Sweden develops MICA: the intelligent, autonomous wheelchair
There's not much like getting off the couch and moving around a bit (well, not always), and a Swedish dissertation has uncovered an intelligent wheelchair that sports remote-controlled or autonomous operation. Sven Rönnbäck of Luleå University of Technology in Sweden has developed the Mobile Internet Connected Assistant (MICA), which offers up a presumably comfortable looking set of wheels to those who lack the ability to move on their own. Similar to the technology found in the Good Bytes Cafe, this wheelchair utilizes the built-in "distance-metering sensor to discover the surfaces that are available," and the technology can also be used to "ensure that the wheelchair is being used in a safe manner." The target market is "severely handicapped individuals who would otherwise find it difficult to steer a wheelchair," as these folks could take full advantage of the head-controlled interface in order to instruct the machine where to go next. Best of all, the device can learn and store maps of one's home, giving blind and visually impaired individuals the chance to cart around their crib without worrying over foreign objects foiling their plans. While we haven't heard of any VCs grabbing hold of this marvel just yet, we're sure that opportunity isn't too far away, and we're all about finding new ways to blaze a path. [Warning: PDF link][Via Gizmag]
