This story is part of CESHere our editors bring you the latest news and the hottest gadgets of the fully virtual CES 2021.
The products at CES Televisions, computers, and phones usually get the most buzz, but there are also many important and breakthrough technologies that aim to improve the everyday lives of less paid attention users. This encompasses a range of products primarily focused on accessibility, from hearing aids to braille keyboards to apps that guide visually impaired users.
The COVID-19 The pandemic has shown how critical many of these products are. Tech has played a vital role in keeping people connected for tasks like distance learning, work, and meeting places, but the needs of people with disabilities, who make up 15% of the world's population, are often overlooked.
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Thankfully, this is a topic that is slowly gaining more attention as businesses not only recognize the importance of inclusivity, but also the financial value of making their products more accessible to more people. A 2016 report by Nielsen found that consumers with disabilities, along with their families, friends, and co-workers, constitute a trillion-dollar segment of the market. A 2018 Accenture report also found that companies advocating greater disability inclusion gain access to a talent pool of more than 10.7 million people. A more diverse mindset would allow companies to make their products more accessible.
"Inclusive design is now a mainstream talk," said Greg Stilson, senior director, global innovation at American Printing House (APH), which makes a hybrid QWERTY and Braille keyboard. "As recently as five years ago, integrative design was not a priority for UX designers," he added, referring to user experience design.
Here are some of the accessibility and assistive technology offerings that will be showcased at this year's fully digital CES aimed at leveling the playing field.
Mantis Q40
The Mantis Q40 from APH is a Bluetooth QWERTY keyboard with an upgradeable Braille display. This frees blind or visually impaired users from having to choose between a traditional keyboard or a Braille device. Instead, as they type, written information is displayed on the braille display at the bottom, complementing a screen reader that provides descriptions to users.
The device can connect to up to five different devices at the same time via Bluetooth and has a USB connection. It works with Mac, PC, and iOS Devices with support for Android and Chromebook coming soon. It costs a whopping $ 2,495.
The company is also selling a smaller, lower-cost Chameleon 20 device for $ 1,595 that includes a traditional Braille keyboard instead of QWERTY. It offers the same functionality with external devices and the same connectivity capabilities as the Mantis Q40.
A key component of these tools is that they build on the accessibility initiatives that are being taken by more and more large technology companies, Stilson said. He noted that while it is exciting to see companies like Samsung, Apple, Google, and Microsoft placing a greater emphasis on inclusive design: "Accessibility isn't always efficiency. You can make a computer talk, but there are interaction tools that which make him one of them. " efficient experience? "
Products like the Mantis Q40 and the Chameleon 20 provide additional efficiency while the user always has the Braille display at hand.
The high price of the keyboards is due to the cost of making special devices with refreshable Braille technology, Stilson said. However, APH is developing a dynamic tactile device that can create multiple braille displays so that, for example, a blind student can instantly access an image, diagram or shape that is being discussed in class. APH hopes to use the device to create more cost-effective, upgradeable Braille technology.
Oticon More
Hearing aids have gained increasing attention at CES in recent years, especially because artificial intelligence has given them a boost. According to the World Health Organization, there is an urgent need for these tools as nearly 500 million people worldwide have hearing loss.
Hearing aid maker Oticon launched Oticon More on Tuesday, which enables hearing loss users to better understand speech and pick up more of the sounds they need to hear.
A deep neural network is embedded on the chip of the hearing aid, which processes data in complex ways using mathematical models. The DNN is trained on 12 million real sounds, according to the company. When a tone passes through the hearing aid, it is compared with the results of the DNN learning phase. In this way, according to Oticon, the device offers a more natural and balanced representation of sounds and can process speech in a noisy environment, as a human brain does.
Oticon More supports streaming from iPhone and some Android devices. It is available in eight colors and the cost is determined by individual hearing care professionals.
Other smart hearing aids on the CES virtual floor this year include the Kite Personal Sound Amplifier, which features noise-canceling technology and resembles a pair of earphones attached to a neckband. It has three listening modes: focus mode, which speaks to the person in front of you and is designed for one-on-one conversations; Ambient mode, which provides more general awareness while reducing unwanted noise; and group mode for social settings, which improves speech 180 degrees in front of the wearer and reduces background noise.
Signia also offers a range of smart hearing aids, as well as a face mask mode in its app, which allows wearers to better understand speech through face masks. Users can tap a button in the app that instructs hearing aids to focus on a person's speech signals, making words sound cleaner and reducing background noise. After the face mask mode has been deactivated, the hearing aids pass on ambient noise in a natural-sounding balance. The app is available for iOS and Android.
Heard that
Hearing aid users who want to better separate speech from ambient noise may find HeardThat useful. The smartphone app, which launched late last year and is available for iOS and Android, uses machine learning to achieve this goal.
To create the app, neural networks were trained with thousands of hours of recorded speech to distinguish useful speech from other sounds. While other speech-assisting devices tend to amplify or reduce all sounds, including useful ones, HeardThat separates and discards sounds, according to the company. This makes it easier for users to understand speech.
The app was not designed to replace or serve as an alternative to hearing aids, says Bruce Sharpe, CEO of Singular Hearing, which makes HeardThat. Rather, it should be an accessory for hearing aids.
To use the app, connect your hearing aid or headphones to your phone and stand them in front of you on top of the person you are talking to.
HeardThat is free, but the company plans to roll out a subscription service at some point.
Conscious app
Smartphones can also help blind or visually impaired users navigate their surroundings. Sensible Innovations Aware app provides descriptive navigation for users who can put their phone in their pocket and listen when the app announces places they will pass.
Users can tell the app where they want to go and let them know when they got to their destination. Aware also provides an audio description of locations, e.g. B. the layout of a store.
Aware is available for iOS and will soon be released for Android.
Sravi
Liopa, a company that has developed AIBased on lip reading technology, an app called Sravi was created that can recognize certain phrases by analyzing lip movements. This can be helpful for people with language difficulties or for patients in the intensive care unit with symptoms that make them unable to speak.
The app is being tested by the UK's National Health Service and is expected to hit the market in the spring.
Sravi was helpful in the face of the flood of intensive care units within the NHS COVID-19 Patients who are ventilated, says Liopa CEO Liam McQuillan. Critical care clinicians tend to use tracheostomies to remove patients from ventilators, which prevents patients from speaking. These patients can benefit from an app like Sravi, says McQuillan, and the company has seen an increase in demand for its technology.
Customers use the app by downloading it to their phone or tablet and then pointing the device towards a patient. Sravi records a video of the patient speaking and a deep neural network maps the lip movements to find out what someone is trying to say. This information can be sent back to the health care provider's phone or tablet in text form or as a synthetic voice.
The range of accessible products on show at CES shows a growing awareness of the need for inclusive technology design and product offerings that Stilson does not expect to slow down in the years to come.
"Indeed," he says, "I see that it keeps increasing."
The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions about a disease or health goals.
