Wireless for the Disabled 
The Georgia Institute of Technologys devices aid those with mobility, vision,
and hearing impairments.
From: Technology Review - December 2003 / January 2004 - page 64
By: Corie Lok

The wireless explosion has made cell phones, personal digital assistants, and
other devices ubiquitous and has changed the way people communicate and work.
It also offers the possibility of changing the lives of disabled people, by
helping them overcome or cope with their impairments. The 25 researchers at
the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Mobile Wireless
Technologies for Persons with Disabilities at the Georgia Institute of
Technology have made it their mission to realize that possibility. The center
is designing wireless aids that target a variety of disabilities, including
mobility, vision, and hearing impairments. The researchers use off-the-shelf
components to build these systems "so that theyre affordable and available,"
says John Peifer, the centers codirector. The center is also trying to
influence wireless-device manufacturers to make their existing products more
accessible to people with disabilities and to adopt new applications with the
needs of the disabled in mind. "Mobile wireless is going to be a big part of
the future. Theres a concern that people with disabilities would be left
out," says Peifer.  

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A team led by Georgia Institute of Technology computer scientist John Peifer
wants to enhance the lives of disabled people by designing wireless assistive
technologies out of affordable off-the-shelf components. The prototype system
devised by Georgia Tech researcher Jack Wood is a wearable captioning device
for the hearing-disabled that would allow users to follow dialogue in movies,
conferences, or lectures in real time through the wireless transmission of
captions to a personal digital assistant (PDA). The user can read the text
off the PDA or off of a commercially available mini monitor that can be
attached to eyeglasses. Giving vision-impaired people more navigability and
independence is the purpose of a product designed by Jeff Wilson consisting
of a pair of headphones and a wearable computer controlled by a handheld
device; a shoulder strap on the bag housing the computer is outfitted with a
GPS sensor, which works in conjunction with a head-tracking sensor on the
headphones to track the wearer's location and direction. The computer plays
beeps over the phones, and the user moves toward the apparent source of the
sound, thus following a preprogrammed route. Tracy Westeyn's "gesture panel,"
designed for people whose fine motor skills are limited, lets users control
household devices by waving their hand in front of the panel, which is
equipped with 72 infrared light-emitting diodes arranged in a grid
configuration. A camera directed at the panel registers interruptions in the
infrared beams concurrent with the gesture, and feeds the data to a laptop,
which then triggers a specific device control command. Georgia Tech's
Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Mobile Wireless Technologies
for Persons with Disabilities, where Peifer and his team work, plans to help
wireless-device manufacturers realize the benefits of refining their existing
products for the handicapped.

http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/demo1203.asp
