GW Micro featured by Indy Star
Sep-27-2008The following story can be found at: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080927/BUSINESS10/809270400/1110/BUSINESS10
Assistive technology can help improve lives
As a technology columnist, I often get caught up in the gee-wizardry of gadgets.
I go gaga over touch-screen surfaces, storage capacity, crisp pictures and blinking lights. I rave about features and functions that, to be honest, only speed up tasks that I could just as easily do the old-fashioned way.
There's a difference between toys and tools, however -- especially when it comes to technology.
And on Friday, I got some great examples of that during a stroll through the inaugural Statewide Assistive Technology Conference at the Indiana Convention Center. It was hosted by the Indiana Assistive Technology Act Project, known as INDATA (www.eastersealstech.com).
Dozens of companies were there to demonstrate their products to customers with disabilities.
Assistive technology includes devices that help people with disabilities perform everyday tasks, such as communicating or using a computer.
These devices aren't cheap, though. We're talking hundreds or often thousands of dollars.
Take the not-even-a-month-old EyeMax System from Pittsburgh-based DynaVox Technologies. For $15,000, the price of a new car, someone who is unable to move can use this device to verbally communicate with others using only his or her eyes.
It's an amazing piece of technology that I've been told has been around for five years, but only recently became reliable.
Understanding the concept is easy: Stare at a phrase or letter after letter to spell out a word on what's basically a laptop-sized touch-screen computer. Then stare at "speak" and the words will emerge from a speaker embedded in the EyeMax System.
Actually putting that concept into practice, however, wasn't so easy, although I imagine it will get easier with time. DynaVox sales consultant Doug Trent warned me about the learning curve.
I felt like I was learning to use "the force."
Across the aisle, Fort Wayne-based GW Micro was demonstrating some of its products for people who are visually impaired.
The Sense View Duo, which sells for about $1,000, is a souped-up magnifying glass that takes digital pictures of faraway objects, like billboards, and allows users to zoom in on them. It also lets you do cool stuff like flip the contrast so black letters on a white background become white letters on a black background -- a popular feature among those who have macular degeneration.
One of the cheapest products on GW Micro's table was the screen-reading application Window-Eyes.
It matches each keystroke with a verbal description. So, type the letter "a" and you'll hear "a." If you type the capital letter "A," the pitch of the voice will rise as an indicator. Also, the application will read back a previously typed paragraph. Scrolling through a Web page will produce the same effect.
"It's important as a blind person to be able to go letter by letter, word by word," said Douglas Geoffray, vice president of product development and support.
As the name indicates, Window-Eyes only works with Microsoft Windows, not a Mac or Linux. It sells for $895 -- expensive to me, but a bargain compared to the Braille readers that go for $4,000 to $10,000.
Braille readers resemble tiny moving keyboards that display in Braille words as a user scrolls across a computer screen.
The coolest assistive tech gadget that GW Micro was selling Friday had a Braille reader attached to it.
The Braille Sense Plus, selling for $6,000, is basically a personal digital assistant. A bulky, clumsy-looking PDA. It stores addresses and appointments, lets users send e-mail, using MSN Messenger, browse the Web, and even has GPS that's tailored to the blind.
Sales manager Jeremy Curry compared it an iPhone.
With all the toy-like features to go gaga over, I guess he's got a point.
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