Global Resources and Promising Practices for Building and Refining Accessible and Inclusive Smart Cities from Darren Bates LLC.
Whether for work or personal enjoyment, reading has long-lasting social and cognitive benefits. However, for seniors experiencing barriers to reading such as low vision or a physical impairment, using traditional print materials is a struggle, if not impossible. Benetech’s growing library of over 685,000 accessible titles, Bookshare, enables seniors to read in ways that work for them, choosing from a…
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Tech companies and persons with disabilities gathered on the 16th November in Vienna to debate how not to leave persons with disabilities behind technological breakthroughs. The purpose of the event was to take the opportunity to discuss how new technologies embrace human diversity, and how technological solutions can be designed for all, including for persons with disabilities. It is an…
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Cities are serious business – economic powerhouses with their own delicate ecosystems – but that doesn’t mean designing them shouldn’t be fun. In Barcelona they made it a game. Like a Spanish translation of SimCity, the popular ’90s video game for imagining cities that plays on Nintendo’s moustachioed mascot Mario, SuperBarrio offers real residents the chance to determine how their…
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Researchers at EPFL developed a system that combines virtual reality with artificial tactile sensations to help amputees feel their prosthetics as if they are a part of their body. Source MASHABLE: Researchers at EPFL developed a system that combines virtual reality with artificial tactile sensations to help amputees feel their prosthetics as if they are a part of their…
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Over the past several decades, artificial intelligence has been besieged by rounds of hype that over-promised, under-delivered and nearly killed the field. Once more, Gartner positioned machine learning and deep learning at the top of its hype cycle, and all the publicity and potential often leads to a “trough of disillusionment” if the technology fails to deliver. Now that AI…
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Erich Manser has run 18 marathons and set an Ironman world record for a physically-challenged athlete. He’s also legally blind. For him—and all athletes who are blind—carefully navigating the swirling stampede of runners, the chaotic cowbell-banging crowds, and the crush at water stations can be exceptionally tricky, even with the help of a guide. So when Manser ran the Boston…
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Smart technologies, such as robotic telepresence and the Internet of Things (IoT), are capturing the attention of adaptive technology programs in state and local governments, as well as educational institutions, according to experts. IoT and robotic telepresence are among the latest adaptive technology (AT) efforts states are deploying, as they seek to deliver on the 30-year-old Technology-Related Assistance Act of…
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The 7th M-Enabling Summit opened its doors to around 600 participants from 30 countries. The opening panel on Artificial Intelligence (AI) heard representatives of Microsoft, Amazon and Oath (the company coming out of the merger of AOL and yahoo) talk about the immense and exciting potential of AI. These included how Amazon’s Alexa is helping in speech therapy for autistic…
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Spending on smart cities technology will be about $80 billion, perhaps $135 billion by 2021, according to a new report. These investments will make spread opportunity and make cities more convenient and sustainable. But they come with new complex challenges. In an interview with China Global Television, I discussed smart cities and the technology that’s driving them. What makes a city…
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Sixty-two years ago this summer, Dartmouth professor John McCarthy coined the term artificial intelligence. Joi Ito, director of MIT’s Media Lab, has come to think it’s unhelpful. Talk of AI has become hard to avoid due to surging investment from companies hoping to profit from advances in machine learning. Ito believes the term has also become tainted by the assumption…
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Today marks the seventh Global Accessibility Awareness Day, a celebration of inclusion and digital access for people with disabilities. Microsoft took the opportunity to unveil the Xbox Adaptive Controller, a gaming controller designed to accommodate a range of special needs, and Apple announced that its Everyone Can Code curricula for the Swift programming language will come to schools with vision- and hearing-impaired students.…
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly being built into our digital world. And there are great opportunities to maximise AI to make the digital world more accessible for people with disabilities. Here, AbilityNet’s senior accessibility and usability consultant Joe Chidzik explores some of the possibilities and some of the ways AI is already changing things for disabled people. 1. AI could…
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Are you looking forward to a future filled with smart cognitive systems? Does artificial intelligence sound too much like Big Brother? For many of us, these technologies promise more freedom, not less. One of the distinctive features of cognitive systems is the ability to engage with us, and the world, in more human-like ways. Through advances in machine learning, cognitive…
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At this week’s AI for Good Global Summit,artificial intelligence (AI) experts, ethicists, academics, technologists, United Nations representatives, and youth gathered to discuss how AI can help support educational initiatives and improve the lives of young people worldwide. They noted that while AI has the power to a resolve some of humanity’s grandest challenges, these technologies also risk leaving the young,…
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AI is already learning how to discriminate By Erica Kochi March 15, 2018 Co-founder, UNICEF Innovation What happens when robots take our jobs, or take on military roles, or drive our vehicles? When we ask these questions about the rapidly-expanding role of AI, there are others we’re often overlooking—like the subject of a WEF paper released this week: how do we…
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