Week 14

Accessibility in technologies really made a great long way to being able to serve people with different needs. I see more and more websites adding functions to become more accessible for people with dyslexia or visual impairments. And I think the most ingenious device was invented to serve one of the most ingenious people - Stephen Hawking.

The story of adaptation devices to Stephen’s state of health is long. He lost his voice in 1985 after severe pneumonia, but was still able to move his fingers and used a special clicker. Then, his hands became too weak to use them, and it was needed to invent a new way to communicate. It was the first time his cheek was responsible for his speech. He was able to generate about 15 words per minute, and also surf the internet, write books and communicate. Unfortunately, the illness was unstoppable and this method became non-effective as well in 2011.

A long period of brainstorming and experiments began. Intel were the volunteers to help. The best engineers were trying hundreds of methods. Some of them were ineffective (they even tried to generate speech by his brain waves, but they were too weak for the computer to distinguish them from the other noises). Another obstacle was Stephen’s difficulty to adapt to the newest technologies. Even though he was one of the most clever people in history, he still was a senior 70-year-old man from the last millennium. Finally, the most suitable way was found - Intel software developers created software ACAT (Assistive Context-Aware Toolkit), which recognized the slightest moves of Stephen’s mimic muscle, transformed them into letters and words, and also predicted the next words to be said. What is interesting, it was firstly released with another voice, but Stephen Hawking insisted on returning to his previous voice. 

Now it is a wonderful example of accessibility. Without it, the world wouldn’t have heard the voice of a genius, contributing to astrophysics, after 1985. In 2015, Intel released ACAT as a free open source software, for those in need to use it, and for specialists to develop it, making it better and better.