Son's autism leads to innovation

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8634607.stm

by alexandros • 16 years ago

32 10 16 years ago

news.bbc.co.uk

rmundo• 16 years ago

Certainly one of the great examples of scratching one's own itch.

chime2• 16 years ago

Necessity is the mother of invention. I made ktype for my paralyzed cousin ( http://chir.ag/projects/ktype/ ) but his condition worsened to the point that he couldn't even keep his eyes open. I even shared it with HN and lots of people said very helpful things on what else I can do with it. My cousin's condition has improved so he might be able to use it and now I want to make it work on the iPad. It would be the perfect medium/device - it is light, has touch, and a fast web-browser - not to mention it is CHEAP when compared to typical medical equipment. I'm hoping to make an iPad/iPhone app that has audio/speech-synthesis etc. and can be used by a lot more people than my cousin. Let's see what happens...

ordinaryman• 16 years ago

http://jambav.com is one such venture by Zoho (started when it was still AdventNet), dealing with autism + scratching one's own itch need.

Read about it at.. http://startups.in/India/Edutainment/Jambav--Indias-Magic-Ki...

Phaedrus24• 16 years ago

There is also a company named Invention labs which has developed a product named Avaz for people with Cerebral Palsy

http://www.inventionlabs.in/avaz/aboutAVAZ.html

wallflower• 16 years ago

See also: John LeSieur builds simplified web browser (Zacbrowser) for his 6-yr old autistic grandson, Zackary

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2008-06-0...

jacquesm2• 16 years ago

How would something like this (long lead time, plenty of dedication, no income for the duration of the project) fit in to an OSS strategy?

2000 pounds is a boatload of money for a piece of software, there must be many people that could use this software but can not afford it, but I can see how the author does not have many options other than to charge for it.

zck• 16 years ago

The 2000 pounds isn't just for software:

>Speaks4Me is currently sold on a portable, touch screen media player imported from the Far East. But the company is finalising a "software only" price...

jacquesm2• 16 years ago

Ah, thanks, I completely missed out on that, I thought you had to order that separately, didn't realize the price was all-in.

Son's autism leads to innovation

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