life=life; kludge=workaround
Along the lines of an earlier post here on the interfaces emerging between mobile devices and medical technology, Diabetes Device & iPhone.
AT&T has just launched new technology in partnership with Mednet which monitors heart patients’ health and transmits the results to their cardiologists via Bluetooth.
[via - More medical applications for mobile technology]
More Lifekludger posts on Bluetooth
Dave - LifekludgerA report released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare earlier this month comes to what to me, and I suspect many, would think obvious.
Disabled people often poor
Thursday, 02 April 2009
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Economic hardship can be both a cause and a result of disability, according to the study. Image: iStockphoto There is a strong correlation between socioeconomic status and severe disability in capital cities, according to a report released 1 April 2009 by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
Traditional low socio-economic status is one of the basic drivers of why Lifekludger exists.
Dave - LifekludgerA video demo of Dasher. A single finger interface that allows you to enter text without a keyboard. Dasher is free software, and it works in all languages, and on many platforms.
Keyboards are inefficient for two reasons: they do not exploit the redundancy in normal … all » language; and they waste the fine analogue capabilities of the user’s motor system (fingers and eyes, for example). … Dasher is a text-entry system in which a language model plays an integral role, and it’s driven by continuous gestures. Users can achieve single-finger writing speeds of 35 words per minute and hands-free writing speeds of 25 words per minute. Dasher is part of Debian, and there’s even a little java version for your web-browser.
See more at the Dasher Project site - http://www.dasher.org.uk/
[via - Make: Online : Single-finger text input]
Scientific American has an article about the Open Prosthetics Project.
The Open Prosthetics Project has applied the “open source” model to the design of inexpensive prosthetic hands and arms that a small demand can still support. The designs are free for anyone to use.
This is an exiting project to me as it’s an example of what Lifekludger would hope to do across a wide range of adaptive device areas - crowd source adaptive technology solutions in an open environment.
The wiki describes a “collaboration between users, designers and funders”, which in Lifekludger terms would be Livers, Makers and Givers, respectively.
What is also interesting is the foot note on this site page that inverts the usual locking things away from the public by registering the designs so they stay open.
All content and designs on this site are in the public domain, and we place no restrictions on their use. We encourage any derivative works, but all designs are registered periodically so that our work cannot be kept from the public by patents.
More at these links:
*Hat tip Lloyd Walker from Novitatech for the email.
Dave - Lifekludger
ergodex customisable input device
When I heard about this Ergodex customisable keyboard on a podcast I immediately thought it would have uses in Assistive Technology circles and yes, they do already have information on such application of the device.
As it happens, this device has been around a while but only for Windows computers. Just recently has it been available to work with the Mac.
The Ergodex comprises individual keys which are arranged in any manner you wish on a plate on a tablet form of device. Each key can be assigned to do whatever function required. The possibilities are endless allowing you to customise any keyboard/input layout.
[Ergodex]
Dave - Lifekludger
