COuNTLESS PEOPLE INTERFACE with assistive technologies today either because they use them, develop them, or both. Some technologies have existed for years, but many more are rapidly emerging, motivated by fast-paced developments in science and engineering and by the allure of enormous potential markets.
Newly emerging technologies include mobile video phones for people who use sign language in combination with texting; enhanced optical character recognition and speech-synthesis tools that read books aloud; machine-learning algorithms and positioning sensors that enable a person in a wheelchair to better navigate an environment; improved speech recognition hardware for more accurately inputting verbal commands to a computer, wheelchair, or handheld device; and tools for designing more accessible Web sites.
More than 40 million Americans identify themselves as having a physical disability, of which 12 million use a computer and 17 million work full time, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Globally, the United Nations estimates more than 700 million people have a physical disability. That figure is expected to grow due to improved health care and other factors that are increasing overall life expectancies. Factoring in the family members of these hundreds of millions, the market for assistive technologies encompasses several billion persons, and universities, companies, and governments are ramping up to meet the demand.
Profound changes are taking place in the assistive technology industry due to advances in compute power, signal processing, data compression, materials science, miniaturization, cognitive research, and the algorithms of artificial intelligence, along with a host of legal mandates and a growing awareness that full access to technology makes the world a happier, smarter, and more
productive place. Along with these technological advances, a 21st-century lexicon has emerged as well. People today talk about accessibility technology, rather than assistive technology.
Accessibility technology guru Richard E. Ladner, a professor in computer science and engineering at the University of Washington and winner of the 2008 A. Nico Habermann Award, notes that people don’t want assistance; they want fair and equal access to computers, the Internet, consumer devices, and other aspects of 21st-century life no matter their preferences or needs. Ladner is also quick to point out that if
will be the ones to decide if any particular technology is part of that equation, so one of the biggest challenges is to find solutions that work and will also be adopted by a community.”
Hence, a growing focus today is on universal design, making the human-ma-chine interface fully configurable and responsive to everybody’s needs with technology so customizable that it’s accessible to all. That’s the goal of today’s dynamic, constantly evolving landscape of accessible technology research initiatives and commercial products.
“It’s a Wild West out there,” Ladner says. “In terms of the engineering
anyone expects to work in the field of accessibility technology, they must understand the accompanying terminology and the mindset.
There are no homogenous populations of accessibility technology users who can be lumped together by a common disability, Ladner says. There are only individuals who will evaluate the various accessibility tools made available and pick for themselves. “There are lots of examples of accessibility technology that were creative or inventive, but were never accepted,” says Ladner. “People just want to live their lives, to succeed, and be happy. They
alone, accessible technology research is a wide-open field, with an infinite number of solutions.”
In Japan, a great deal of effort has gone into text captioning to make video broadcasting more accessible to people who are hearing impaired. At Kyoto University, various projects emphasize speech recognition and language processing for spoken text. At NHK Laboratory, part of Japan Broadcasting Corp., work focuses on real-time captioning in which a TV announcer’s words are repeated by a speaker to produce a
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