Spell Master: App That Improves Spelling Skills For Blind Children

What's great about technology, especially in this decade is that everyone has access to a plethora of information and resources that can help them easily find and/or create exactly what they are looking for. This is a huge blessing when it comes to assistive technology because more and more parents are taking things in their own hands using technology to come up with accessibility solutions for their kids instead of waiting for a developer to create something and mass market! Spell Master, an app created by Ruchi Patil, is a great example of that.

Ruchi Patil is a mother of a 10 year kid who is blind. He is a voracious reader and an exceptional

JAWS user. But because he couldn't practice how to spell words using a computer, his spellings were a little weak. To take care of this problem, Ruchi went on to create an iPad app that lets him practice spellings on the go! She emails him a list of words that she wants him to practice and he emails her the results right away straight from Spell Master. Since it is on the iPad, it is more like a game which helps in garnering more of kids' interest and attention. Ruchi's son also attaches an external keyboard to his iPad to type into it. Spell Master also allows kids to test their spellings in various other languages besides English. Sample tests for French, Spanish, and Hindi are included in the app.

It's a simple yet great concept for teaching visually impaired children at a very young age to spell words right. Spell Master is available on the app store for $4.99 and requires iOS 7.0 or later.

The app in itself is amazing, but it is  also a great step towards encouraging parents to develop apps for their kids and loved ones to fulfill their needs!

iTune Store Link: Spell Master

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Braille Electronic Synthesizer For Visually Impaired

For the occasional/ hobbyist musician, access to musical equipment is pretty much a piece of cake now. New equipment is fairly reasonably priced, and there are tons of used gear that can be bought for much lower prices also. With so many options available, it is so easy to set up equipment in your bedroom and start jamming! In some cases, it�s easier said than done though, especially if you are blind. Most of the electronic synthesizers, for example, come with a lot of knobs, and it may be very difficult to figure out what those knobs do if you cannot see (or even if you can, in some cases!).

To curtail this limitation, Moog, a leading manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, especially synthesizers, is going to start producing a new version of its Sub Phatty synthesizer that will have a Braille overlay so users with visual impairment could use it as well. The price would be the same as the regular synth ($899 at many online stores).

This is a very simple design change but makes such a huge difference for blind consumers. Hopefully other music instrument manufacturers will follow suit!

Watch Stevie Wonder and Friends demo the Moog Sub Phatty here:

Here�s another detailed video about Moog Sub Phatty:

Moog Sub Phatty with Braille overlay is available here.
Source: Gizmodo

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ASETNIOP Keyboard: A Revolutionary Keyboard For People With Disabilities

The QWERTY keyboard has been around for ages and is the de facto standard for all devices we use that involve typing. However, it may be does not provide too much flexibility to people who may have visual impairment, not so good motor skills or over flexible joints (think Ehlers-Danlos syndrome). Of course,  another limitation, if I may, of QWERTY keyboards is that it if it's being used on a touch device like a tablet, it occupies a substantial amount of real estate which may be frustrating for people with low vision who may want to see a larger amount of enlarged text at a time on the screen.

To solve all these problems, and to essentially allow users to type wherever they want to (that's a bold statement, isn't it?!), Zack Dennis has devised the smarter, flexible ASETNIOP keyboard that only consists of 10 (one for each finger) invisible keys! A single tap on the  eight "finger" keys produce one of the ASETNIOP characters, and the two thumbs are used for "space", "enter" etc. The rest of the letters are produced by pressing two fingers at the same time - a two key combo, if you will, which are known as chords. These chords can be used to store commonly used words, automatic correction, and text predictions. With the ASETNIOP keyboard, what matters is which fingers are pressed down.

The best part about this keyboard is that its size can be adjusted to provide ample space for all ten fingers to press down comfortably. The visualization below depicts how uniformly the finger taps are distributed across the keyboard.

To watch a demo of this keyboard, watch the following video:

The ASETNIOP keyboard is available for the desktop and the iPad. Give it a shot!

Website: http://asetniop.com/

Read the full press release for more exciting information and to see a demonstration of someone typing 83 wpm on the ASETNIOP keyboard!

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